Title of Success Story

Flood Recovery Webinars support food security, environmental stewardship and restore productivity

Public Value (now or future)
(Impact:  Who benefits beyond participants and how?  What conditions changed?)

Citizens’ benefit- planting of cover crops reduces erosion, which protects and enhances air and water quality. Returning land to production through implementation of Land Grant University generated strategies protects food supply, prices and security. Returning land to production also improves ag economy, which benefits local economies.

RELEVANCE
(Why is it important to address this issue with education?  What are the desired changes?)

Growers and landowners needed to remove debris, sediment, and implement new and unfamiliar practices to protect the environment and return the hundreds of thousands of acres impacted by the 2011 flood in IA, NE, SD, MO and KS back to productivity. Growers had never faced a flood of this magnitude and duration. Regional land grant university experts needed to partner with other agencies to develop and drive information to clients.

RESPONSE
(Outputs: activities, numbers reached, publications, products)

ISU and UNL staff held two flood webinars jointly. Over 500 clients (landowners, growers, agribusiness and service agency staff) attended. 4 new publications were created to address recovery, and thousands of copies of these and existing publications were distributed to clients. This group of clients represented over 1 million acres of affected land.

RESULTS (Outcomes:  specific changes that occurred in Learning, Actions, Conditions; how outcomes were measured)

Highlights include-
74% of clients improved their knowledge and implementation of environmentally safe sediment and debris management.
55% of clients implemented environmentally and agronomically sound flooded soil syndrome management strategies.
55% of clients plan to plant cover crops to protect soil from erosion.
Clients indicated the value of the information of the webinars was approximately $18.1 million dollars.

Desired Changes
Learning
Actions
Conditions

All 3.

Extension Lead(s)
(name, position, counties served, contact information)

Clarke McGrath, Shawn Shouse, Aaron Saeugling, Rich Pope, Joel DeJong, John Sawyer, Mahdi Al-Kaisi, Mark Hanna, Tim Eggers, William Edwards, Willie Klein and several other ISU staff, along with staff from UNL.

Your Position

­­­­­_____Field                                        _____Campus                         ____x_Both

POW # and Team

 ­­­­­__x___100 Corn and Soybean Production and Protection
­­­­­_____ 110 Dairy
­­­­­___x__ 120 Farm and Business Management
­­­­­_____ 130 Horticulture: Commercial and Consumer
­­­­­_____ 140 Iowa Beef Center
­­­­­_____ 150 Iowa Pork Industry Center
­­­­­__x___ 160 Natural Resources and Stewardship

ANR Priority (select all that apply)

­­­­­___x__Global Food Security and Hunger
­­­­­_____Regional Food Systems
­­­­­___x__Natural Resources & Environmental Stewardship
­­­­­_____Food Safety
­­­­­_____Sustainable Energy – Biofuels & Biobased Products
­­­­­_____Climate Change
­­­­­_____Other

Knowledge Areas: (USDA categories)

Continuing Story

_____ No                _____  Yes (If continuing, what story?)

Major Partners or Collaborators

NRCS, UNL, FSA

Where story took place
(Region, campus, multi-regional)

Primarily Iowa, secondarily Nebraska, and some limited impact in SD, MO, KS

Fiscal Year

2011

Multi-state or Integrated (Ext + Research)

Yes

Funding Source

Keywords