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Policy
Initiative 2004 Grants |
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The following projects are the result of a May 2003 request for proposals issued by the Center’s Policy Initiative. Nearly 30 submissions were evaluated in a competitive process that included external reviewers and members of the Leopold Center’s advisory board.
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Cooperation: A survival strategy for small- and medium-sized farms, $26,479, R. Ginder, ISU economics (P03-16) This project will create a database of small- and midsize farms in the Midwest that have used cooperative agreements to remain competitive, and evaluate the effectiveness of eight of those producer groups.
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Defining farm types: Policy research considerations, $25,950, Beginning Farmer Center, Iowa State University (P03-5) Most current farm programs categorize farms according to gross annual sales. This project will identify other ways to segment farms such as by acreage, harvested cropland or animal units, and use a simulation model to assess the impacts of a given policy on various sizes and types of farming operations.
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Determination of the impact of USDA’s National Organic Program on organic farms in Iowa, $20,000, K. Delate, Iowa State University (PO3-8) Investigators will survey an estimated 400 Iowa organic farmers to determine the impact of the USDA’s new National Organic Program on their operations. The new standards went into effect October 21, 2002.
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Early rounds: Farmers evaluate
implementation of the Conservation Security Program,
$21,750 (two years), R. Karp, Practical Farmers of Iowa,
Ames (P03-21) This project will evaluate farmer's
acceptance or rejection of the new Conservation Security
Program. The information will identify potential
opportunities and barriers of the new federal program,
and provide policy makers with input about its
implementation.
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Forming agricultural bargaining units for a sustainable and equitable agriculture, $32,630, R. Ginder and D. Jarboe, Iowa State University (P03-10) This is a case study of a cooperative marketing and bargaining association in the Upper Midwest, the Organic Farmers Association for Relationship Marketing (OFARM). Specifically, investigators will look at how the organizational structure could be used by other farmer groups in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
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Leveraging linkages to the
Conservation Security Program, $20,000, D. Sand,
Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, and L. Kemp, The
Minnesota Project, Canton, Minn. (P03-6) Project
investigators will interview administrators of state and
county-level watershed and conservation programs in Iowa
and Minnesota to see how they can integrate their work
plans into the new $3.7 billion Conservation Security
Program (CSP). They also will work with Practical
Farmers of Iowa to get farmer input on how CSP can meet
their objectives
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Taking the next step: Building a platform for performance-based stewardship payments, $42,085, C. Flora, North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (P03-15) This is part of a larger project to quantify the usefulness of conservation incentives in making significant environmental improvements. The Leopold Center grant will merge predictions from a simulation model and an economic analysis in a southeast Minnesota sub-watershed to determine if and how the real cost of land use change is supported by stewardship payments. The project also will work with the Rathbun Lake Watershed Alliance in Iowa to make policy recommendations.
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