## Iowa Water **Issues**

**Jim Gulliford, Executive Director Soil and Water Conservation**  **Society Soil and Water Conservation**  **Society**


### • Private, non-profit professional society • 5000 members - scientists, educators, practitioners, farmers, ranchers • Advocate for sustainable soil, water, natural resource management • Private, working lands**Population** 

### • Current Population – 310 million • Projected 2050 Population – 438 million*

– 41% increase over next 40 years 

### * Pew Research Center, 2/11/2008**Population** 

### • Current US Population – 310 million • Projected 2050 Population – 438 million*

– 41% increase over next 40 years 

### • Need for our nation’s private working lands to provide food, fiber, forage, and fuel for the US and world’s population * Pew Research Center, 2/11/2008**International Commitment**  

### • 2000 United Nations General Assembly

– to halve the world’s undernourished and impoverished population by 2015 

### • Virtually no progress* * UN Millennium Goals, 4 August 2007**Addressing Projected Food**  **Demand**


### • Bring more lands into production • Produce more from current land in production - increase productivity • Import more food into the country**2010 CEAP*** **Release** • Conservation Practices on Cultivated Cropland • 32 million acres of corn

– 40% corn grain harvested nationally • 19 million acres of soybeans • 15% cropland acres have excessive erosion • 25% cropland acres are losing soil carbon • 62% cropland acres require additional nutrient management to reduce nitrogen and/or phosphorus loss from fields • 5% tile drained lands protected from Nitrate N loss * NRCS Conservation Effects Assessment Program, Upper Mississippi River Basin - June, 2010**Challenge** 

### • Meeting the food, fiber, forage and fuel needs in the United States • Sustaining and improving the productive capability of the nation’s farm and ranch lands • Protecting and improving environmental quality**Challenge** • Meeting the food, fiber, forage and fuel needs in the United States • Sustaining and improving the productive capability of the nation’s farm and ranch lands • Protecting and improving environmental quality 

### Scientific challenge, **Grossly underestimated Non**  **- solutions** 


### • Bringing more lands (non -Ag lands, marginal Ag-lands) into food and commodity production • Continuing current Ag production activities that have non-sustainable, adverse environmental impacts**Solution Model**  

### • Advance science that makes our most productive lands, more productive **and** environmentally sustainable

– Improve crop, input, soil and water management systems

– Improve nutrient management (N, P) to optimize production and reduce nutrient loss

– Intercept and address nutrients lost through drainage and runoff

– Market ecosystem services from Ag lands**Technologies and Initiatives**  

### • Iowa denitrification wetlands • Iowa drainage and wetlands landscape initiative • Iowa Statewide Nutrient Reduction Strategy • USDA Upper Mississippi River Basin Initiative**Accountability** 

### • Address drainage districts like watersheds

– Assure wetland functions and values are protected; fair mitigation

– Install treatment wetlands to scrub nutrients that escape the Ag production system

– Improve nutrient management

– Enhance drainage to enhance Ag productivity

– Document drainage district environmental performance**Accountability** • Measure technology and program performance

– Document wildlife implications of wetland establishment, mitigation and management

– Address the question of denitrification wetlands becoming nutrient/pollutant sinks

– Address the question of drainage implications on landscape hydrology, flood routing

– Determine if precision nutrient management can be a more effective practice in landscapes with enhanced drainage performancePothole Depression Typical of Farmed Wetland May 2007
Same Pothole Depression June 2007Kossuth County – 0.4 Acre Farmed Wetland with Crop Loss Spring 2007**Ta rgeted W** **etland Restoration:**  **Iowa CREP** **W etland** **Conclusions** 

### • Agriculture must address two of the most pressing world challenges – hunger and environmental protection – simultaneously • Model must change – more of the same is not enough • Change must be encouraged, accommodated and monitored – first in experiment and demonstration, then in program implementation**Conclusions** 

### • Questions associated with proposed change must be addressed scientifically, and simultaneously • Don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of the ‘good’ – make the ‘good’ better, through adaptive management processesSoil and Water Conservation Society

http://www.swcs.org jim.gulliford@swcs.org