Groups join to fund Iowa BIG North water quality educational project

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A $20,000 donation from four ag-related organizations will let an area student program develop a mobile resource center to teach about water quality.

An Iowa Farm Bureau Share Grant ($7,500), AgVantage ($5,000), the Growmark Foundation ($5,000) and the Floyd County Farm Bureau ($2,500) joined to give the money to the Charles City Community Excellence in Education Foundation to be used for an Iowa BIG North project.

Jay Matthews, Floyd County Farm Bureau president, said, “We had the idea to build a trailer that individuals or organizations could use to pull around and help teach farmers and the community as a whole about what farmers are doing about water quality — things like no-till, cover crops, things like that, and also about our unique karst topography in northeast Iowa.”

Randy Heitz, Farm Bureau regional manager, said Iowa BIG North will develop the concept of what should be in the trailer, as well as the type of trailer that will be needed.

“We want them to develop the ideas from their standpoint,” Heitz said.

“It’s going to be useful at county fairs or field days or at the research farm,” he said. “It’s really a great unity of some unique partners.”

Once the student group develops the project it will be turned back over to Farm Bureau for educational presentations.

Matthews said, “We hope that it can be a continuing project with Iowa BIG as new technology is evolved in farming, that they could create new modules or resources to put in the trailer.”