URBANDALE, Iowa - Sand County Foundation and the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) brought together Midwestern farm and conservation leaders August 27th through the 29th in Des Moines, Iowa for a North Central Summit on Nutrient Management and Water Quality.

The primary focus of the summit was to define the challenges of managing nutrients more effectively, identify ways to meet those challenges and to make recommendations on how to encourage more rapid adoption of performing nutrient management by Midwestern farmers. Farmers, agribusinesses, conservation groups and government officials were given the opportunity to discuss the latest on the ground research on keeping nitrogen and phosphorous on cropland and out of watersheds and drinking water.

“This conference was an excellent opportunity for Sand County Foundation and Iowa Soybean Association to meet with farmers and discuss options to minimize one of America’s most serious environmental issues,” said Dr. Brent Haglund, Sand County Foundation president

Darlington, Wisconsin producer Mark Riechers has been part of the Discovery Farms project in Wisconsin. Discovery Farms program takes a real-world approach to finding diverse economical solutions for producers working to address the potential environmental impact of their operations.

“I think the next step for producers is to tell the general public about our work and reminding them that it is challenging to achieve our economic goals while feeding the world safe, wholesome and affordable products; while at the same time, to be proactively identifying farming practices which improve our environment.”

Ron Heck is a producer from Perry, Iowa. Heck says that the summit was a definite move in the right direction for producers. “This was an extremely impressive summit with producers, environmental groups, researchers, and municipal utilities and others all getting together and talking about possible solutions to water quality issues. It was very productive.”

“Being there helped me recognize that, although the issues revolving around agriculture, nutrient management, and the environment are incredibly complex, there are ways that people from many perspectives can come together and work to benefit producers and water quality at the same time.”

“It was also interesting to hear others acknowledge that what has worked in one area doesn’t work in another. Realistically, any comprehensive solution to water quality is going to come from using different nutrient management strategies in different areas.”

“Follow-up is going to be very important — we need to keep working together to find solutions that are good both for producers and for water quality.”

For more information, please contact Roger Wolf, Iowa Soybean Association, (515) 251-8640 or Brent Haglund, Sand County Foundation, (608) 663-4605.