UPDATE: Farm groups react to proposed Leopold Center cuts

“This is a real blow to farmers,” said Aaron Heley Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union and a member of the board of directors at the Leopold Center.

Lehman and others in the agricultural and environmental community say they were blindsided by the legislation, which came up April 11.

“We knew nothing about it,” said Mark Rasmussen, director of the Leopold Center.

Lawmakers on that day proposed an education budget in the House-Senate appropriations subcommittee that would include cuts to the regents universities.

Included in those cuts were $397,000 to the Leopold Center at Iowa State. That would be the entire general fund appropriation for operation of the Leopold Center, which gets a majority of its funding from a tax on fertilizer in Iowa.

Corresponding legislation would eliminate the Leopold Center and would re-direct that money toward other water quality programs at ISU.

Republican leaders of the subcommittee said they had to cut the budget, and that K-12 education was the priority.

“A lot of people felt that the mission for sustainable agriculture that they (the Leopold Center) undertook, that they have completed that mission,” said Rep. Cecil Dolecheck, according to the Associated Press.

That couldn’t be further from the truth, said Ralph Rosenberg, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council and a former legislator who helped write the law establishing the Leopold Center 30 years ago.

“I’m not sure people realize how valuable the Leopold Center is,” Rosenberg said.

Some of the center’s supporters spoke at a public hearing on the subject of budget cuts

April 17.

“As a leader on cover crops I know how many questions still remain,” said Liz Garst, of Coon Rapids, who added that farmers still need to know more about seed treatments, varieties, grazing issues and countless other aspects of cover crops.

“We need research,” she said. “This loss will be devastating.”

Others pointed out that the Leopold Center leverages significant federal research dollars and that it looks at items such as water quality.

Calling the Leopold Center “one of the true gems of Iowa,” Dallas County farmer Marvin Shirley said the Leopold Center’s research in rotational grazing techniques has been invaluable to many farmers.

Mark Peterson, who farms in Southwest Iowa, reminded lawmakers that the Leopold Center was started during very difficult economic times and is aimed, in part, to help farmers deal with those tough times.

Former Iowa Farmers Union President Jana Linderman said that lawmakers would come to regret their decision if they choose to eliminate the Leopold Center, comparing the research work being done at the center to changing the oil in the tractor on the farm. Linderman said that the state would end up paying for the decision to eliminate the center.

Doug Gronau, a farmer who serves on the board for the Leopold Center representing the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, said 80 percent of practices included in today’s nutrient reduction strategy got their start as research grants at the Leopold Center.

Practices such as cover crops, buffer strips and hoop buildings were all items that benefited from research projects through the Leopold Center.

Sally Worley, executive director of Practical Farmers of Iowa, said the Leopold Center has been instrumental in helping Iowa farmers deal with water quality and conservation issues, as well as with issues related to beginning farmers.

“It has impacted thousands of Iowa farms,” she said.

In a statement issued April 12, Iowa Soybean Association Executive Director Kirk Leeds said, “The Iowa Soybean Association has consistently advocated for dedicated, long-term funding to support water quality in Iowa.

“… ISA does share concern with others, such as Iowa State University and the University of Iowa, about proposals that would erode the capacity for helping farmers develop and advance solutions to water management challenges.”

Iowa State officials say the Leopold Center has also brought in millions of dollars of federal and private grant money that has benefited the university and agriculture as a whole.

For Rasmussen, this week’s news has been a shock. He said he hopes farmers contact legislators to complain, and he said the idea the center’s work is

done is laughable.

The job of the center, he said, is in part to ask uncomfortable questions and to help farmers to think outside the box.

“We’ve still got water quality problems,” he said. “We still lose too much soil.”