The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture is learning to operate under a $1 million budget cut.

Fred Kirschenmann, director of the center, said the basic budget cut in the center’s research project money was 86 percent.

“As far as I know, no one else got hit quite that hard,” he said.

Kirschenmann said the Leopold Center took the same percentage budget cut that the other university departments did, which was 14 percent, or $90,000.

“There was also a fee transfer of $1 million out of our research budget into the [university] general fund, so we lost that million,” he said.

The budget cuts the center faced resulted from decisions made as the state Legislature worked to balance the budget, said Wendy Wintersteen, senior associate dean in cooperative extension services.

“This was an external decision, outside of the university,”

she said.

Kirschenmann said the monetary losses are already being felt at the center.

“The most immediate impact is that we cannot fund any new research in the next funding cycle and we are cutting back every place we can in terms of operating costs,” he said. “We’re keeping everything to a minimum and not funding any extension efforts or interdisciplinary issue teams as we always have in the past.

“It’s like a bare-bones operation,” Kirschenmann said.

Dave Williams, outgoing chairman of the board, said he’s disappointed with the budget cuts.

“It seems to me like we’re not seeing the big picture,” he said.

The entire state has benefited from the center and all the work it has done on soil and water quality, projects on sustainability and alternative methods for housing swine and cattle, Williams said.

“This is going to have a big impact on not only Iowa’s agriculture, but Midwestern agriculture,” he said.

Williams said working with state legislators was a necessary part of his job. “When I was the chair, we did lobby hard with the Legislature because we felt like even though there was a budget shortage, we took more than our share,” he said.

The cuts were difficult for not only to the faculty and staff who received grants from the center, but also to producers in the state who are interested in the results of research in sustainable agriculture issues, Wintersteen said.

“The Leopold Center has a great record of research leading to cutting-edge innovation,” she said.