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2006
Policy Initiative Grants
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The following projects are the result of a Summer
2005 request for proposals issued by the Center’s Policy Initiative.
Twelve submissions were evaluated in a competitive process that
included external reviewers and members of the Leopold Center’s
advisory board.
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$25,000 each of 2 years, Mike Duffy,
Beginning Farmer Center, Iowa State University; and Traci
Bruckner, Center for Rural Affairs, Lyons, Nebraska [P2006-09]
Project investigators will conduct an analysis
of farm policies that impact sustainable, midsize farmers and
ranchers (those just beginning as well as those who are
beginning again by converting to niche markets and/or
sustainable farming systems. The analysis will include the
current farm program and 1031 like-kind exchanges, beginning
farmer initiatives focused on access to land and markets,
value-added and conservation programs that support sustainable
farming systems serving high value market products, and new
policy options for the 2007 Farm Bill. The project also includes
development of a Tool Book that will contain information
and resources needed by farmers considering a transition to a
niche market.
 Mike
Duffy received his Ph.D. in Agriculture Economics from
Penn State in 1981 and joined Iowa State University in 1984 as
extension area farm management specialist. Currently, he is
Extension Economist in farm management and director of the
Beginning Farmer Center at ISU. Duffy conducts the annual land
value survey in Iowa and is responsible for preparing cost of
crop production estimates and the Iowa farm costs and returns
publication. Formerly Associate Director at the Leopold Center,
Duffy's research interests include determinants of farm
profitability, small farms, soil conservation, integrated pest
management, and sustainable agriculture.
Traci
Bruckner is associate director of the Rural Policy
Program of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, A
native of rural Nebraska, she also farms with her husband. She
is a graduate of Wayne State College in political science and
rural sociology. At the Center for Rural Affairs, she works on
development of farm bill policy options and the Conservation
Security Program. She is a member of the Coordinating Council of
the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group(MSAWG) and the
Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (SAC) and chairs the MSAWG/SAC
Farming Opportunities and Fair Competition committee that covers
beginning farmer issues.
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Evaluating the Conservation Security Program utilizing the
perceptions and economics of producer participation:
Implications for land stewardship in Iowan Agriculture
$38,337, 1 year, James Kliebenstein and
Denis Reich, ISU Economics [P2006-06]
This study will focus on four watersheds
in Iowa currently included in the Conservation Security Program
(CSP), sampling farmers for their participation in and
perceptions of the program as a means for measuring program
effectiveness. This will complement other CSP research by
combining a strong quantitative focus with the qualitative
approach typical of the CSP studies that have preceded it. The
project will include a questionnaire survey of changes in
producers’ behavior due to CSP payments, and a budgetary
analysis of CSP participants’ short and long run profitability
using farm data collected from in-depth interviews.
James Kliebenstein is professor of economics at Iowa State
University, where he has worked since 1986. Responsibilities
include teaching the introductory and advanced farm business
management courses; advising undergraduate and graduate
students; and farm-level research. His research interests
include the economic evaluation of agricultural production
systems, economic assessment of animal health management, and
structural adjustment in the agricultural industry. A primary
focus of his work has been the development of cost effective
agricultural production systems that are environmentally sound,
economically profitable, and socially acceptable. Kliebenstein
is a member of the ISU Hoop Group, which began as a research
team funded by the Leopold Center. He received his Ph.D. from
the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1972.
 Denis Reich has
been a graduate student research assistant at Iowa State
University since 2004. He is currently working on a master's
degree in the ISU Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture.
He has worked as a development engineer for an Australian water
treatment company, a field engineer for a water plant project in
the United Kingdom, and regional manager for U.S. Filter in
Ames.
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- Farm Bill listening
sessions
$5,440, 1 year, Leigh Adcock, Iowa Farmers
Union Education Foundation, Ames; Kathie Starkweather, Center
for Rural Affairs, Lyons, Nebraska; and Niel Ritchie, League of
Rural Voters, Minneapolis, Minnesota [P2006-01]
This project includes six listening sessions
around the state of Iowa during early 2006. The listening
sessions give farmers a venue for voicing opinions on current ag
policy and the farm bill, and give them encouragement and tools
to use in contacting policy makers and legislators themselves.
Farmers will be asked specifically to comment on the aspects of
the farm bill which impact sustainable agriculture and the
environment, such as CRP, CSP, “green payments.” Information
will be summarized in a written document, submitted to the
Leopold Center, posted on the Leopold Center Web site and made
available to farmers and the public.
Summary of research findings [PDF]
 Leigh Adcock
has served as associate director of the Iowa Farmers Union and
Iowa Farmers Union Education Foundation since 2003. In this
role, she is responsible for event coordination, membership
services, grant solicitation and administration, office
management and bookkeeping, communications, and various other
duties. She is a 1982 graduate of the University of Northern
Iowa in communications and has worked in television, radio,
newspaper journalism, magazine editing, and public relations.
She has also done graduate work in public policy and
communications, and has worked with advocacy groups such as the
Sierra Club and PeaceLinks, and helped with outreach for the
Iowa Waste Reduction Center and Practical Farmers of Iowa. She
grew up on a 360-acre family farm in northwest Iowa.
Kathie
Starkweather is a policy organizer for the Center for
Rural Affairs. Prior to working with the Center, she was a rural
sociologist with the USDA-Natural Resources Conservation
Service. She has an undergraduate degree in sociology from the
University of Nebraska and is currently completing a master's
degree. She was recently named as a Fellow with the University
of Nebraska Center for Applied Rural Innovation. She is a member
of the Rural Sociology Society, Midwest Sociological Society,
American Sociological Society, and the Soil and Water
Conservation Society. She grew up on a family farm in Nebraska.
Niel
Ritchie is the executive director for the League of
Rural Voters, a non-profit organization founded in 1986.
Previously, Niel served 11 years as the National Organizer for
the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy. In that role, he was responsible for outreach and
networking among U.S. farm groups, and also for building
relationships with non-farm group partners including
environmental, consumer, business, labor and church groups. In
1994 he founded Minnesotans for Safe Foods, a consumer coalition
working to improve food safety through best practices in on-farm
management of livestock and improved processing techniques. He
is the author of numerous articles and op/eds on food and farm
policy.
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- Women, land and legacy: Agricultural
policy for changing land ownership
$12,686, 1 year, Cassi Johnson, Iowa City,
and Denise O'Brien, Atlantic, Women, Food and Agriculture
Network [P2006-10]
Project investigators will create and circulate
a white paper to highlight the political and economic power of
women landowners and farmers and clarify their needs and
priorities to those involved in drafting the 2007 Farm Bill.
Iowa input on the 2007 Farm Bill will be collected at 10
facilitated listening sessions held across the state in February
and March 2006. The sessions also will empower women farmers and
landowners to participate in the policy process on their own by
contacting elected officials.
Project report
[PDF]
Summary of
research findings [PDF]
 Cassi Johnson is
program associate for the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network (WFAN),
joining the organization in May 2004. Her responsibilities
include overseeing WFAN’s communications and programming,
providing administrative support to WFAN’s Executive Director
and Coordinating Council, and assisting with fundraising and
membership development. She received her master’s degree in
sustainable agriculture from Iowa State University in December
2005.
 Denise O'Brien is a
farmer, community organizer and executive director and founder
of WFAN. She has farmed near Atlantic with her husband, Larry
Harris, for 29 years, maintaining 16 acres of fruit and
vegetable production and raising turkeys and chickens. She is an
organizing member of the Women's Task Force of the Iowa Farm
Unity Coalition, past director of the Rural Women's Leadership
Development Project of PrairieFire Rural Action, Inc., and past
president of the National Family Farm Coalition. She recently
received the Iowa Farmer’s Union Life Time Achievement Award,
Practical Farmer’s of Iowa Sustainable Agriculture Award and the
Athena Award from the Atlantic Chamber of Commerce for her
community achievements and accomplishments. She was inducted
into Iowa's Women's Hall of Fame in 2000.
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