DES MOINES — While some good things for agriculture came out of this year’s session of the Iowa legislature, farm organization leaders saw no new legislation on a dependable funding stream for water quality, and some say lawmakers actually moved backward on that issue.

“In a word, disappointment,” says Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Hill when describing his response to the session.

For the second year in a row, lawmakers failed to come to agreement on a plan to pump money into water quality efforts. On top of that, lawmakers did not address the idea of coupling state tax law with federal tax law in regards to section 179, which involves depreciation. And they did not address the funding structure for mental health treatment.

Those were the top three priorities for the Farm Bureau, Hill says.

On a positive note, lawmakers did not increase property taxes as a way of dealing with the budget shortfalls.

Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, was more downbeat about the session.

“I think it was a bad session for farmers overall,” Lehman says. “Going in, every farm group I know had water quality as their top priority. To not have anything come out of the session on that was extremely disappointing.”

Leopold Center cuts

And Lehman says the vote to eliminate the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University added to that issue. While some funding was added to the nutrient reduction plan, some of that new $2.1 million essentially came from the Leopold Center as lawmakers moved fertilizer tax revenue from one spot to another.

The loss of the Leopold Center could haunt Iowa farmers for a long time to come, Lehman says. He says it will hurt Iowa’s reputation for supporting all types of farmers, will take away a place where researchers asked uncomfortable questions about farming, and will end important research.

“That’s a big blow,” he says.

Hill says the Farm Bureau did not support the elimination of the Leopold Center, but he said many agricultural organizations likely had no specific language from delegates demanding support for it and thus were caught off-guard when lawmakers suddenly pushed for the cut.

He says there is a legitimate concern the elimination will feed into the narrative of big vs. small in agriculture that has often hurt the industry.

Leaders of other agricultural groups say they did not push for the elimination of the Leopold Center, but added that saving it wasn’t one of their priorities either. The fact that most of its funding was channeled to the nutrient reduction program likely softened the blow of losing the center as well.

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey says the loss of the Leopold Center will negatively impact agriculture in Iowa, and he says the work done at the center in regards to water quality and horticultural production have been important.

Positive moves

Meanwhile, many of the state’s commodity organizations say that while they are disappointed with the lack of action on water quality, they are happy with some items that passed during the 2017 session.

A bill to offer some nuisance lawsuit protection for livestock producers was passed, pleasing livestock organization leaders.

The bill, SF447, was passed in response to court rulings that had ruled a previous law unconstitutional. The previous law had offered blanket protection for livestock producers who had followed the law, explains Tyler Bettin, state public policy director for the Iowa Pork Producers Association. The new proposal takes a different approach, limiting damages for a livestock operation that is following state law and putting a limit on lawsuits.

Lawmakers also approved $100,000 for the Iowa Department of Agriculture for a foreign animal disease fund. While that amount is less than the $500,000 requested, it was still welcome in a year when most budgets were cut.

Some limited funding was also included for the veterinary diagnostic lab at Iowa State University.

“We were pleased with that,” says JanLee Rowlett, government and regulatory affairs manager at the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association.

The ICA would like to see lawmakers approve funding for an entirely new lab, she says, but the fact that the existing lab didn’t see a cut, and actually saw any increase, was a victory.

Near miss

Iowa Soybean Association leaders say they were hopeful lawmakers would pass some type of meaningful water quality legislation. They came close, arguing over two competing bills in the final day of the session.

The ISA was also supportive of proposed legislation that would have dealt with structural issues surrounding water quality, providing a better framework for targeting spending on a watershed basis. That bill did not pass but still shows promise, says Carol Balvanz, ISA director of policy.

Balvanz says legislators had a difficult time finding money for water quality or anything else.

“It’s just not there,” she says of funding.

Iowa Corn Growers Association President Kurt Hora said he was disappointed more wasn’t done on the issue of water quality funding, but he and Balvanz both say they were pleased the state renewed the Renewable Fuels Infrastructure Program at its present spending level of $3 million for the next fiscal year.

“That’s really a good thing,” Hora says. “Funding for ethanol was a big deal for us.”

And the legislature approved some funding for on-farm research done by the ISA. Balvanz says that while that funding level got “a little bit of a haircut,” it only fell from $400,000 to $375,000.