Spencer Award for Sustainable
Agriculture Goes to ISU Professor
Jerry DeWitt, entomology professor at Iowa
State University (ISU), received the Spencer
Award for Sustainable Agriculture on
November 14, 2005, at the 2005 Iowa Organic
Conference in Ames, IA. The Spencer Award,
administered by the Leopold Center for
Sustainable Agriculture, is awarded annually
and recognizes farmers, researchers, and
educators who have made a significant contribution
toward the stability of mainstream family
farms in Iowa. Dewitt is the fourth recipient
of the award and the first non-farmer to
be honored.
An entomologist by training, DeWitt has
been employed by ISU
Extension for 33 years, about half that
time as an administrator. In 1995, at the
request of a group of organic farmers, he
organized a meeting with ISU College of Agriculture
administrators that led to the hiring of
two ISU faculty dedicated to research in
organic agriculture, the first at a land-grant
university. He also has worked with ISU Extension's
Integrated Pest Management program and helped
develop their Integrated Crop Management
program that includes all aspects of cropping
systems, not just pests. He has been interim
national program leader for sustainable agriculture
at NIFA three times in the last 10 years,
and he has worked on special outreach projects
for the agency. He now coordinates ISU Extension's
sustainable agriculture activities. In addition,
DeWitt was a member of the Leopold Center's
advisory board from the Center's founding
in 1987 through 1997.
DeWitt is an accomplished photographer and
his picture-taking travels have led him to
Iowa farms as well as farms nationally and
internationally. His photographs have been
published in two books: People Sustaining
the Land (Vagnetti and DeWitt, 2002) and
Renewing the Countryside-Iowa, a 2003 project
supported by the Leopold Center.
The Spencer Award for Sustainable Agriculture
has been presented since 2002. The award
is named for Norman A. and Margaretha Spencer
who farmed near Sioux City for 40 years and
includes $1,000 from the Spencer family.
The Leopold Center's advisory board and past
recipients select each year's honoree from
submitted nominations.
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