Farmers, students and former students at Iowa State University, researchers and advocates for a sustainable agriculture in this state are gathering at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 6, in the Wallace Building auditorium northwest of the Iowa State Capitol.

The Iowa Sustainable Agriculture coalition are gathering to call for a re-funded, re-staffed, and re-imagined Leopold Center.

Last year the Iowa Legislature stripped all funding from this ISU center. They also tried to expunge the whole idea of sustainable agriculture by taking the Center out of the Iowa Code. Governor Branstad, who 30 years before signed legislation that created the center, vetoed the part of legislation ending it. He did not restore the funding, however.

The Leopold Center-sponsored research is not something corporations such as Monsanto promote, because sustainable farming often uses fewer of its chemicals. Leopold research is not what the owners of huge factory hog farms promote, either. The center pushes alternative animal farms that are smaller and use less energy. They create the type of manure that is a good soil amendment — not a slurry that often runs off into our rivers and streams.

Agribusiness is not interested in the Leopold Center. That is why the leaders in the Iowa Legislature took its funding away. Many farmers and regular Iowa citizens want that research. We will see if their voices overcome the wishes of industry.

For more information about the Feb. 6 event, visit Iowa Sustainable Agriculture.

David Osterberg is co-founder and former director of the nonpartisan Iowa Policy Project and remains IPP’s lead environmental researcher. As a state legislator from Mount Vernon for six terms in the 1980s and 1990s, serving part of that time as chair of the House Agriculture Committee. He was involved with legislation creating the Leopold Center.