NPSAS Founding Father Appointed Director of Leopold Center 
Fred Kirschenmann was recently appointed to direct the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University in Ames. Fred is one of NPSAS's founding fathers and past president of the organization.
Fred said although it is hard for both he and Carolyn, who currently serves as an NPSAS board member, to leave the prairie here in the Dakotas, "this is be a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity," and he wants to continue the journey toward sustainable agricultural practices. "Besides," he laughed, "I am getting older and the farm needs to transition to a younger generation anyway!"
Fred has not cut all ties to his farm, however, having put together a management team to continue his operation despite his absense. Nor has he cut his ties to the Dakota prairies, as he intends to return once a month spring through fall to "walk the prairie" he is native to.
As director of the Leopold Center, Fred will oversee a budget of $1.6 million, of which $1.1 million is for research and demonstration through a Competitive Grants Program. The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture was created by the Iowa General Assembly as part of the 1987 Iowa Groundwater Protection Act. Its purpose is to identify negative impacts of agriculture, contribute to the development of profitable farming systems that conserve natural resources, and inform the public of new research findings. In addition to the Competitive Grants Program, the Center also sponsors interdisciplinary research issue teams and provides information through a variety of educational programs and publications.
The Center is named after Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), a Burlington, Iowa native who saw the great need for wise use of land and water resources. The internationally known conservationist, ecologist, and educator devoted his life to planting seeds of thought about how farming should be productive but not interfere with natural systems.
"Leopold's ideas about a land ethic are probably even more important now than they were when they were written 50 years ago," states Fred. "He had that incredible gift of looking at things as a whole. Leopold warned us to beware of salvation by machines. Most of us have been schooled into thinking that technology will solve our problems. Information, technology and biologies are part of a natural system, too, and need to be treated as such."
Fred is president of Kirschenmann Family Farms, a 3,500-acre certified organic farm in Windsor, ND, and was also president of Farm Verified Organic, a private organic certification agency, from 1990-1999. He has served on many boards and advisory committees within the organic/sustainable agriculture movement including a five-year term on the USDA's National Organic Standards Board, chaired the administrative council for the USDA's North Central Region's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, served on the ND Commission on the Future of Agriculture, and served on the board of directors for the Henry A. Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture.
Fred stated that both he and Carolyn will continue to be involved in NPSAS in whatever capacity they can. He added, "We both want to continue to be connected with our community here!"
"Many of us who know Fred appreciate his gifts and talents," said Curt Stofferahn, a rural sociologist at the Center for Rural Studies at NDSU. "We know that the loss to North Dakota will be matched by the increased stature that the Leopold Center will receive as a result of his appointment. Some of us regard this philosopher-farmer-environmentalist as North Dakota's own Wendell Berry."
Quote: Soil is the connection to ourselves. . . To be at home with the soil is truly the only way to be at home with ourselves, and therefore the only way we can be at peace with the environment and all of the earth species that are part of it. It is, literally, the common ground on which we all stand.
Fred Kirschenmann "On Becoming Lovers of the Soil"
