This is the third and final article in an INRC series highlighting partnerships that help advance water quality research.
Read the others:
NGOs can play important roles to expand capacity, outreach
Partnerships with private sector help get ideas on the ground
Last year, Matt Helmers was a featured speaker for a Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research webinar highlighting the benefits of collaboration. Helmers, director of the Iowa Nutrient Research Center, has considerable experience with partnerships at state, regional and national levels.
"Collaboration takes time and sometimes other investments, and it doesn't always work out," he said. "But when it does, it has so much potential to expand the reach and impacts of our research."
Benefits he has seen include:
- Providing opportunities to engage with industry, farm groups and NGOs to make sure researchers are asking the right questions;
- Generating financial support;
- Avoiding duplicative research; and
- Working across perceived boundaries to set the stage for more acceptance of research findings and recommendations.
Helmers especially values several impactful partnerships he has been – and continues to be – involved in, including the Iowa Learning Farms, the SERA-46 Committee that works on Gulf Hypoxia and FFAR.
Iowa Learning Farms
Iowa Learning Farms shares science-based information about agricultural conservation and water quality, especially with ag audiences. Its online and in-person events also attract many others interested in what is happening on farms and farmland.
Jacqueline Comito has been at the helm of ILF for almost two decades. During that time, she and Helmers have worked on many projects together.
ILF is known for trying innovative ways to expand the reach of research. It does that through weekly webinars, in-person and virtual field days, and special projects, such as its Water Rocks! Educational programs and mobile Conservation Station trailer exhibits that travel to schools and county fairs.
"It's exciting to see how interest has grown over time, especially from online viewers," Comito said. "Based on evaluations, we have refined our programming to focus on short presentations, usually about research, with plenty of discussion time. We've also added virtual field days. These now attract more than 150 to the original sessions, and many more view the YouTube recordings."
Conservation on Tap gatherings at local breweries are one of ILF’s creative ventures. These events are meant to reach audiences who might not sign on to a webinar. They feature informal presentations over drinks and snacks, frequently by Helmers and Mark Licht, associate professor of agronomy, and also by brewers and utility representatives,
"I often feel like we have developed a symbiotic relationship with INRC," Comito said. "We value the important working relationship with Matt and others at the center. INRC-funded research assures we won't run out of worthwhile topics, and we help share it with broader audiences."
SERA-46
In 2012, Iowa water quality researchers, including Helmers, came together to study problems associated with the "dead zone" in the economically important Gulf. Their work, to identify conservation measures likely to be most effective at addressing nutrient loss from Iowa's landscape and became the foundation for the non-point source section of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
Soon after, the SERA-46 Committee formed to convene researchers and extension specialists in the north-central and southern regions of the United States with common interests and expertise related to the factors contributing to Gulf hypoxia. Iowa State's John Lawrence, now semi-retired, helped start SERA-46, working with a partner at the University of Mississippi. At the time, Lawrence was an associate dean and director of ISU Extension and Outreach agricultural and natural resource programs.
"Our states had developed the first nutrient reduction strategies, and we thought it would be useful to have a formal 'place' for the upper and lower states to confer, share research and tackle our shared concerns," Lawrence said.
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, charged with co-leading the Gulf Hypoxia Task Force, saw the value of working with agriculture. The agency appreciated that Extension could help bring ag to the table, and the research side of the land-grants could bring science. The committee has always had a focus on building relationships to help solve this big, seemingly insurmountable challenge," he said.
A decade later, the committee still meets regularly and involves 12 land-grant institutions along with unofficial representatives from state agencies and EPA. A long-time participant on the committee, Helmers now co-chairs SERA-46 with a representative from the University of Missouri.
"These challenges are always likely to be with us, considering our cropping systems," Lawrence said. "We've made some major progress, though, and I believe the partnerships developed through SERA-46 and related activities have contributed to that."
FFAR
Collaboration is in FFAR's DNA. The national organization was established to build public-private partnerships that support agricultural research.
"FFAR brings together the top scientists and stakeholders in their fields to share knowledge, solve problems and benefit farmers," said Sarah Lyons, FFAR scientific project manager.
Helmers’ involvement with a 4R Nutri-Net project, funded by FFAR and The Fertilizer Institute, helped inspire his faith in the power of partnerships. The three-year effort was one of the first-of-its-kind regional projects to document the impact of 4R (right source, right rate, right time and right place) nutrient management on nitrate leaching, soil health, nitrous oxide emissions and crop production on sites across the U.S. Corn belt and Canada.
The project outcomes included recommendations for shared research standards and open-access reporting. Though the project officially ended in 2020, members still meet regularly to discuss research questions and projects. Some of that work has helped inform the recent Efficient Fertilizer Consortium and the data management and evaluation protocols FFAR is now asking its projects to adopt, Lyons said.
"I believe working together and building relationships to solve problems is a core component of impactful work," Lyons said.
"I wish we put greater emphasis on collaborative skill-building in educational programs. Relationships inspire trust, the key ingredient of successful and impactful research. Despite differing priorities, trust among various stakeholders can result in surprising progress toward a common purpose that benefits everyone."
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