A listening session to gather input on the future of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture will be held Tuesday, September 19, 2017, from 6 to 8 pm at Dordt College in Sioux Center, IA.
The listening session will be held on the third floor of the Campus Center of Dordt College in rooms CA318 and 319. Parking is available in lot #1 off of 7th St NE. Enter the Campus Center through the main doors located near the clock tower.
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture budget at Iowa State University was reduced by nearly $2 million, no longer allowing the 30-year-old center to offer grants to support researchers, graduate students, working farmers or field-to-table advocacy programs.
Legislative leaders called for cuts to the center’s funding in April, arguing that it had accomplished its mission and the funds should go to other issues.
Many of the center’s research grants have been discontinued or moved to the university’s Nutrient Center. The center’s remaining annual income stems from about $200,000 in endowment interest.
The College of Agriculture offered the center a year of funding to help ensure students won’t feel the financial impact of the Legislature’s decision, said Matthew O’Neal, an associate professor of entomology who chairs the university’s sustainable agriculture graduate program.
A nine-member Visioning Task Force is holding listening posts throughout the state to determine what the center should focus on next. The task force includes four working farmers, a university student, a university faculty members and representatives from Riley Resource Group, Practical Farmers of Iowa and the Iowa Environmental Council.