The practice of adding small grains or forage crops to corn and soybean rotations has great potential to balance production and environmental goals, but adoption of these practices in Iowa and across the Midwest is low. 

The US Department of Energy announced that the City of Ames and 15 other municipalities across the country were selected for technical assistance grants within their “Waste-to-Energy” program. C-CHANGE team members Mark Mba Wright, Ali Kraber, and Lisa Schulte Moore are working with the City on this grant. 

Learn more about emerging concepts in biogas digestion and on-farm biogas production in this Iowa Learning Farms webinar!

The webinar was held on June 2, and the recording can be found here

A new study indicates that insects like honey bees in many cases can do a better job of pollinating soybeans than the plants can on their own.

Farmers can help slow climate change by mixing native grasses into croplands, restoring wetlands and raising perennial crops. Seeding narrow strips of land within and around crop fields with native plants is an effective and affordable way to make farming more climate-friendly.

C-CHANGE researcher, Marshall McDaniel is the recipient of the Early Achievement in Teaching Award from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Iowa State University. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in soil and plant growth and soil and plant relationships. McDaniel believes learning is best achieved through discovery and wants students to become comfortable with, and excited about, the same discovery process experienced by scientists.

Although numerous governmental and non-governmental organizations have been working for decades on different outreach strategies to promote conservation practice use, adoption of key practices such as cover crops and no-till is not yet widespread enough to address resource concerns. This new study involving Iowa State University C-CHANGE researchers can more effectively guide conservation extension and outreach programs.

C-CHANGE team member Matt Liebman was part of an international research team that established through a meta-analysis that diversifying agricultural systems beyond a narrow selection of crops leads to a range of ecosystem improvements while also maintaining or improving yields.

Tom Richard, C-CHANGE researcher and professor of ag and biological engineering at Penn State explains, “The Northern Hemisphere of our planet has a lot of plants growing. In the summer and fall, they pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and overcome some fossil fuel emissions. But that alone is unfortunately not enough. A goal of C-CHANGE is to take advantage of photosynthesis and put it to better use.”

C-CHANGE has received a one-year grant from the Walton Family Foundation to advance an innovative value chain to address challenges facing U.S. Corn Belt. The value chain is based on the production of renewable natural gas (RNG) and associated bioproducts through the anaerobic digestion of herbaceous biomass combined with manure.

C-CHANGE was awarded a $10 million Sustainable Agricultural Systems grant from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The grant expands C-CHANGE beyond Iowa State University to a multi-institutional consortium that includes Penn State University, Roeslein Alternative Energy, FDCE Inc., and the USDA-ARS National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment. The team will advance a new biobased value chain based on the production of renewable natural gas and associated bioproducts through the anaerobic digestion of diverse feedstocks.

Several C-CHANGE team members are among the winners of the 2020 SWCS awards from the Soil and Water Conservation Society (SWCS).  Awards are presented annually to individuals and organizations who have made outstanding contributions in advocating and advancing the conservation of soil, water, and related natural resources.

C-CHANGE’s J. Arbuckle won two 2020 SWCS awards from the Social and Water Conservation Society.

C-CHANGE team member Emily Heaton was featured in Parade’s 2020 listing of the best Earth Day activities across America. Heaton is shown in her research field of Miscanthus giganteus being filmed by a crew from Iowa Interfaith Power and Light, producers of the  This American Land series.

The article notes that Heaton is developing perennial systems that can provide the ecological services and agricultural products to reduce emissions and capture carbon. Heaton is an associate professor of agronomy and extension biomass crop specialist at Iowa State University. See Heaton’s feature or the entire article, Earth Day Across America! 50 Earth-Saving Projects From Every State.

Lisa Schulte Moore, C-CHANGE director, is the winner of the 2020 College of Business innovationENTREPRENEUR Award from innovationIOWA. Schulte Moore won the honor through her work on developing a novel and strategic system called Science-Based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips using the integration of prairie strips into a landscape defined by row crops of corn and beans. Learn more about the award

Schulte Moore is a professor of natural resource ecology and management at Iowa State University and associate director of the Bioeconomy Institute. She will be featured in the 2020 innovationIOWA magazine and recognized at a virtual launch party from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on May 21, 2020.

Omar de Kok-Mercado, project coordinator for C-CHANGE and natural resource ecology and management, received the 2020 Professional and Scientific Outstanding New Professional Award from Iowa State University. De Kok-Mercado coordinates and communicates the activities of the Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips (STRIPS) as well as C-CHANGE.

Iowa State University’s Consortium for Cultivating Human and Naturally reGenerative Enterprises (C-CHANGE) is hosting its inaugural Conference on Agriculture, Technology and Innovation virtually on October 19, 2020. Read the release at Iowa State’s Office of the Vice President for Research site or visit the conference web page for more information.

In this article by Neil Hamilton, Matt Liebman, Silvia Secchi, Chris Jones, Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy has a solid scientific foundation, but it relies on farmer altruism. It’s clear this approach will require generations to produce measurable improvements.

U.S. farmers will be able to collect federal conservation payments for installing prairie strips on their land, and C-CHANGE-affiliated researchers from Iowa State University helped bridge the gap between the latest science and federal policy.

Lisa Schulte Moore, Iowa State University

Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses bring the state a lot of political attention during presidential election cycles. But in my view, even though some candidates have outlined positions on food and farming, agriculture rarely gets the attention it deserves.

As a scientist at Iowa’s land-grant university, I believe our state is at the forefront of redefining what agriculture could be in the U.S., and addressing environmental and economic challenges associated with the extensive monocultures that dominate our current system. I think these conversations should be at the forefront nationally. After all, everyone needs to eat, so all Americans have a stake in the future of farming.