About
ISA’s Environmental Programs & Services (EPS), established in 2000, help achieve ISA’s goal to “stabilize and increase yield while improving production efficiency and the environment.”
EPS’s staff of specialists in environmental planning, agricultural and natural resource management, water quality, farming, communication, outreach and development collaborate with Iowa farmers and varied organizations to develop and deliver programs and services that advance agricultural leadership for environmental quality, while helping farmers achieve agronomic and economic performance gains.
Programs, Projects, Initiatives
From demonstrating and evaluating promising new conservation practices to developing and piloting performance-based initiatives that can be broadly disseminated, ISA EPS provides farmer-led solutions to complex environmental challenges. We have gained national credibility through our action-oriented, adaptive implementation programs, such as:
- CEMSA (Certified Environmental Management Systems for Agriculture) and ADAPT (Agricultural Data Assessment and Planning Tool) – management tools that help farmers and crop consultants integrate environmental performance and energy efficiency with agronomic and economic goals.
- STAARS (Strategies Targeting American Agricultural Resources and Sustainability) – a six-state initiative using CEMSA/ADAPT with 500 farmers and their crop consultants to document agriculture’s sustainability and add business value for participants.
- Cooperative Conservation for Watershed Health (a USDA NRCS/NFWF Conservation Innovation Grant project) – a multi-year project linking watershed planning with farm planning to address water quality concerns in five Iowa watersheds.
Services – Technical Assistance (TA) and Leadership Services
ISA EPS specialists provide technical assistance to individual farmers and to organizations and agencies at watershed, state, regional and national levels. Contracts with collaborators, public and private grants, and soybean checkoff funding support such services as:
- TA for farmers across Iowa, assessing and prioritizing their resource concerns and planning, implementing and evaluating management strategies using CEMSA/ADAPT; training for crop advisors in the use of these tools.
- Assistance for watershed organizations in assessing resource concerns and writing watershed plans, developing projects, seeking funds for implementation, and evaluating outcomes.
- Design, installation and operation of water monitoring for multiple purposes; analysis of water samples; assessment of stream conditions to inform watershed plans and projects.
- Consulting, testimony and leadership in regional and national forums addressing agricultural production and sustainability, water quality and related resource issues.
