2008 Marketing and Food Systems Initiative Competitive Grants

List of all new grant projects - all initiatives

All Current Marketing and Food Systems Initiative Grant Projects
  

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New Project Descriptions

Adding a New Generation to Iowa’s Sustainable Farms
$25,000, 2 years, Teresa Opheim and Cedar Johnson, Practical Farmers of Iowa [M2008-15], STATEWIDE

This program aims to help at least 15 farm families or make farmer/apprentice matches that transition to the next generation. They expect to reach at least 200 farm families with information about "next generation" farming by creating a learning community, special field days and breakout sessions at annual conferences and meetings. Case studies will be developed with at least six families or farmer/apprentice matches.

Teresa Opheim
Teresa Opheim is executive director for Practical Farmers of Iowa. She is a fourth generation Iowan, raised in Mason City, and has a variety of experience in sustainable agriculture. For three years she was executive director for the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and Sustainable Agriculture Coalition that worked with 40 member groups. She also was communications director at the Iowa Environmental Council and editor for the National Wetlands Newsletter, The Environmental Forum, the EPA Journal, and the Environmental Information Service. She has a law degree from the University of Iowa and was admitted to the Minnesota bar in 1985.

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Establishing an Iowa Microenterprise Foundation
$20,000, 2 years, Mark A Edelman, Community Vitality Center, and Ron Prescott, Iowa Microloan Program [M2008-28] STATEWIDE

The Iowa Microenterprise Foundation will be a statewide nonprofit group that can provide small loans and coordinate technical assistance for rural entrepreneurs. The ISU Extension community Vitality Center is working with the Iowa Bankers Association and others to access tax credits in the state's microloan guarantee fund.

Mark A. Edelman
Mark A. Edelman is Professor of Economics and Extension economist at Iowa State University and is the founding director for the Community Vitality Center (CVC) with initiatives in Community Entrepreneurship, Community Philanthropy, and Rural-Urban Policy Studies. Edelman served on the Land O’Lakes, Inc., board of directors from 1985-89, and was elected to the Boone City Council in 1993. During the 1990s, he was campus coordinator and chair of the Research Coordinating Council for the Rural Policy Research Institute. He co-founded SunAM Development LC, a family-owned business with housing developments in Boone and Perry. Edelman is a founding director for Amaizing Energy Holding Company LLC of Denison and NEK-SEN Energy LLC of Sabetha, Kansas. He passed the Series 63 Uniform Securities Agent State Law Examination of the North American Securities Administrators Association and serves on the Iowa SBDC advisory board. He is a former board chair for the Iowa Rural Development Council and former administrative board chair for the Boone First United Methodist Church. Edelman received the 1992 AAEA National Distinguished Extension Program Award, 2002 Faculty Excellence Award from the Iowa Board of Regents, and 2006 ISU Extension Scholarship Discovery and Engagement Partnership Award for CVC’s Wealth Transfer and Community Philanthropy Initiative.

Ron Prescott
Ron Prescott is a program coordinator for the Community Vitality Center at Iowa State University.  He provides microlending program development and system design assistance to the Iowa microlending startup project. Before joining the CVC team in February 2008, Prescott was the co-director of the ISU Center for International Agricultural Finance (CIAF) where he conducted 29 Schools of Agricultural Banking Credit and Finance for microlending organizations. In 2003, he was asked to design an agribusiness finance network in Romania that would encourage Romanian banks to loan money to rural agribusinesses, resulting in 212 loans totaling $49 million. He was a member of the Iowa Bankers Association “Young Bankers Association” and served as president of Farmers State Bank in Dows, Iowa after being promoted from Vice President during the “Farm Crisis” years of the 1980s. Currently, is he is a board member for Wheatsfield Grocery and member of the fundraising committee for store expansion. 

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This grant will build on the successful Grow Your Small Market Farm™ program offered by the Mid-Iowa Small Business Development Council. Investigators plan to develop a grower network among the more than 100 small specialty farm businesses that have completed the program since 2001.

Sherry Shafer
Sherry Shafer is director of the Mid-Iowa Small Business Development Council, where she has worked the past 19 years. She has a background in managing professional businesses, departments and budgets, and extensive experience in writing business plans, marketing and market research, finance, existing, start ups, expansions, cash flows and grants and experience in rural research. She owned a market research firm and received her degree from Drake University.

Penny Brown Huber
Penny Brown Huber is executive director of the Grow Your Small Market Farm (GYSMF) program. Created in 2000, the program has graduated 118 businesses. Brown Huber has owned and operated several small businesses, including operating a small farm direct-marketing business with her husband. Currently she is a member of the Women Food and Agriculture Network and board for Wheatsfield Cooperative in Ames.

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The Grinnell Area Petroleum Replacement Initiative began in 2006 to educate area businesses and residents about alternatives to petroleum products and to promote their use. Phase II will include workshops at Iowa Valley Community College for farmers interested in on-farm biofuel processing. Investigators also hope to create a working group to identify resources for these enterprises or support a farmer co-op or one or more pilot projects.

Rich Dana
Rich Dana's consulting work focuses on renewable energy and sustainable agriculture issues, including educational outreach, project implementation and management. His current clients include the Union of Concerned Scientists and Imagine Grinnell.  He also has worked with Go Solar, the Iowa Farmers Union, the Iowa Renewable Energy Association, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Bergey Windpower, Iowa Honey Producers Association, EcoLips and the Thorland Company.

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Latino Farmers and Local Multicultural Food and Marketing Systems
$53,901, 2 years, Jan L. Flora, North Central Regional Center for Rural Development, [M2008-27] MARSHALL AND CRAWFORD COUNTIES

The purpose of this project is to develop an immigrant farmer training and business incubation program alongside a multicultural local/regional food system. This project will build on the entrepreneurial spirit and diverse foods sought by new immigrants as a way to create entry points for Latino farmers in local food systems. Investigators will work in two Iowa communities and prepare a guide that documents crucial aspects of the process so that it could be used in other communities.

Jan Flora
Jan L. Flora is Professor of Sociology and ISU Extension community sociologist.  He is co-author, with Cornelia Flora, of Rural Communities: Legacy and Change (2008). He directs, with Hannah Lewis, a SARE-funded program that assists Extension, USDA and other professionals in working with Latino farmers. Lewis, who will coordinate the Leopold grant, has studied immigrants’ interest in and skills for farming in Marshalltown and Denison, and did in-depth interviews with Mexican farmers in Iowa for her Master's thesis in sociology and sustainable agriculture (2007). Lewis is on the advisory board for the Entrepreneurial and Diversified Agriculture program at Marshalltown Community College.

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Mapping Biomass Markets in Iowa
$30,000, 1 year, David Plazak and Randy Boeckenstedt, Center for Transportation Research and Education, ISU, [M2008-04] STATEWIDE

This project will refine and expand the Iowa Produce Market Potential Calculator [www.ctre.iastate.edu/produce] to provide supply and demand information for more than 200 products in 23,000 communities throughout the United States. Currently, the calculator provides information on 37 produce crops that can be grown in Iowa. The refined version will show information in terms of truck loads per year, warehouse space required, or per capita servings or calories per day of various food products. A second model will identify biorenewable resources within Iowa counties to meet local transportation needs in the food industry.

David Plazak
David Plazak has been associate director for policy at the Center for Transportation Research and Education since 1996. He is responsible for research, project management and new proposal development in a variety of areas including access management, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), transportation and land use, and distance collaboration. He is former director of the Midwest Transportation Consortium, and is currently serving as the group's educational coordinator.

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Measuring the Economic Impacts of Local Food Initiatives at the Regional Level
$12,500, 1 year, David Swenson, ISU Department of Economics, [M2008-05] BLACK HAWK COUNTY, SOUTHWEST AND SOUTHEAST IOWA

The project investigator will work with three regional groups to determine potential economic impact of increased production and consumption of local food products. The groups are the Southeast Iowa Food Network in Jefferson, Van Buren and Davis counties; an eight-county group surrounding Waterloo and Cedar Falls; and the Cultivators in southwest Iowa. The research will help local groups determine the value of various production and distribution scenarios and potential economic impact in the region.

David Swenson
David Swenson’s work centers on community economic analysis and affiliated projects in support of the ISU Economic Department's efforts in community development and in extending economics education services to the public.  Areas of research and specialization include community and regional economic studies and evaluations, economic development research and technical assistance, input-output (economic impact) studies, fiscal impact research, public finance and tax policy, community change and worker mobility issues, and public program and project evaluation. His services are delivered to communities, citizens, public and private organizations and to local or state government via research reports, on-site training and education programming, community and staff educational curriculum development, print and broadcast media interviews, and through seminars and public speaking appearances.

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New Farmer Jump-Start Project
$8,261, 1 year, Keith Booth, Wallace Foundation for Rural Research and Development and Steve Olsen, ISU Extension - Cass County  [M2008-14] CASS COUNTY

The "New Farmer Jump Start" project is a one-year pilot project to recruit and provide financial and technical assistance to one new food producer in Cass County. That producer will receive access to land, water and production equipment, and expertise that will enable him or her to grow one more two profitable vegetable crops, which will be marketed to local retailers. Modeled after the "That's My Farmer" program in Oregon, selected low-income residents will receive coupons for meals and discounts on local foods at the farmer's market or grocery store.

Keith Booth
Keith Booth is director of the Wallace Foundation for Rural Research and Development. This non-profit organization is the landlord for Iowa State University Outlying Research Farms in southwest Iowa with a mission to create new agricultural opportunities for that area. Booth is a graduate of Iowa State University in Ag Business with experience in agricultural sales and marketing.

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Pottawattamie County Farm to Fork
$12,000, 2 years, Shirley Frederiksen  and Melvyn Houser, Golden Hills RC&D [M2008-08] POTTAWATTAMIE COUNTY

This project includes development of a mentor program and strategic plan that will increase the production of locally raised food in southwest Iowa. Organizers hope to increase the number of beginning producers in the region, increase the number and diversification of local grower as well as farmer-led businesses, and build stronger relationships between consumers and producers in the region.

Shirley Frederiksen
Shirley began working for the USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service in March 1988. She has been a soil conservation technician, soil conservationist and district conservationist before accepting her current position as coordinator for Golden Hills Resource Conservation and Development. She directs a six-member staff and has provided leadership in formation of the Loess Hills Alliance, Western Iowa Grape Growers Association and Loess Hills National Scenic Byway Council. Because of her wide range of interests (she has degrees in art and agriculture) and a progressive RC&D board, projects include a Loess Hills coloring book, the Lewis & Clark Passport Education Program, and work to re-establish grapes as an alternative crop to provide the diversification needed to sustain small family farms with low to moderate incomes and economic development assistance to small businesses. Resource-related projects include construction of the RC&D office building using sustainable design principles and the Loess Hills Stewardship Initiative to restore native biological communities in the Loess Hills

Melvyn Houser
Melvyn Houser is finishing his second term as Pottawattamie County supervisor. He farms with his brothers and helps manage a 100-head cow-calf operation. He serves on various boards and committees for the Iowa State Association of Counties and currently is vice-president of the group's supervisor affiliate. Houser always has supported a local economy (particularly a local food system), and believes that local government is key in bringing people together to create policy and structure to enable a local food system.

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Producer Machinery and Labor Sharing Arrangements Workshops
$30,954, 2 years, Roger Ginder, Iowa Alliance for Cooperative Business Development-ISU [M2008-02] STATEWIDE

Information coming soon!

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Researching and Evaluating an Effective Web-Based Local Food Sales Template Phase II
 $17,800, 1 year, Lora Friest, Northeast Iowa RC&D and David Reisner [M2008-19] NORTHEAST IOWA

This project will complete work already underway to help Iowa food producers and buyers conduct business over the Internet. The Northeast Iowa RC&D has been working with the Leopold Center and three other Iowa RC&Ds on web-based sales/management software that can be used to automate order processing and billing. When completed, the new software will be tested and introduced by other RC&Ds in Iowa.

Lora Friest
Lora Friest is coordinator for Northeast Iowa Resource Conservation and Development Inc., a non-profit serving six counties in northeast Iowa. In her assignment, she works closely with the RC&D board of directors to help them accomplish their mission: “To accelerate the development, conservation and wise use of human, financial and natural resources in order to improve the standard of living and quality of life in northeast Iowa.” She oversees research, project management and new proposal development in focus areas identified by the RC&D board. She is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa with B.A. degrees in biology, natural resource management and earth science.

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Strategies to Effectively Promote& Market On-Farm Retail Enterprises
$29,494, 1 year, Raymond Hansen, Marsha Laux, and Christa Hartsook, ISU Extension Value Added Agriculture Program, [M2008-16] STATEWIDE

This project targets the Iowa agritourism industry with marketing research and strategies to promote on-farm retail enterprises. Activities are directed by the Agritourism Working Group, lead and facilitated by the ISU Extension Value Added Agriculture program. Workshops and a survey of the more than 800 agritourism operators in Iowa are planned.

Ray Hansen
Ray Hansen is interim director for the ISU Extension Value Added Agriculture Program. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees from ISU in agricultural education and extensive employment background working with agricultural businesses and commodity associations. Currently he works with producer groups developing new market opportunities; he also has experience in developing and implementing ISO quality management systems.

The group has set up a web site, Visit Iowa Farms, to link agritourists with destinations in Iowa.

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Strengthening the Local and Regional Food System in the Iowa Valley
$13,500, 1 year, Christine Taliga, Iowa Valley Resource, Conservation & Development [M2008-17] IOWA VALLEY REGION

This project will complete the strategic plan for I-Food, a regional local food system in the Iowa and Cedar River valleys in Benton, Iowa, Johnson, Linn, Poweshiek and Tama counties. The group will continue to support development of local food programs at Metro High School in Cedar Rapids and the Iowa City Community School District.

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Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, 209 Curtiss Hall,
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011-1050 PH: (515)294-3711
Fax:(515)294-9696 Email: leocenter@iastate.edu