150 Points of Pride

The Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has a proud and distinguished history. As part of Iowa State's sesquicentennial celebration, 150 points of pride related to the College - accomplishments, discoveries, contributions, highlights, famous and interesting people - will be posted here. These postings will coincide with 150 days of the 2007-2008 academic year, beginning Aug. 20, 2007 and ending May 2, 2008, with time off for the Thanksgiving, winter and spring breaks. Check back each Monday for five new items.

Center for Agricultural and Rural Development

Since 1958, the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, best known as CARD, has been focused on using the tools of economics to help solve the problems of public and private policymakers. In the beginning, prominent farmers, lawmakers and college leaders came together to ask how farmers could get a fair return for their efforts when commodity production was expanding because of technological breakthroughs. The center was seen as a way to gather and focus the information and research of several departments and agencies at Iowa State. Founding director Earl Heady brought quantitative analysis to the study of agricultural policy at CARD, a scientific approach for measuring different policy options. Those principles are still at work in CARD today, but with a much broader scope, with more sophisticated models (solving for thousands of variables) and with computational muscle unavailable to the earlier analysts. CARD stays at the forefront of agricultural policy development in the areas of food, environmental effects, trade, technological innovation and risk management. The center’s latest research analyzes biorenewables policy, as more agricultural commodities are diverted to fuel uses.

Fast fact: CARD is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2008, concurrent with Iowa State’s sesquicentennial year.

Earl Heady

Earl Heady earned international acclaim for his contributions in developing theory, experimental designs, quantitative analyses and economic interpretation for interdisciplinary research between economists and technical scientists. In 1956, he was the first person to be named a Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of Agriculture at Iowa State. He was the first director of CARD, holding the position from 1958 to 1984. Under Heady’s direction, CARD grew into an internationally renowned agricultural policy center. Heady was ingenious for his use of economic modeling, which allowed agricultural decision-making to become much more scientific. Traditionally, farmers and others relied on experience and observations to make important decisions, such as buying and selling commodities. Modeling made it possible for analysts to evaluate many interrelated factors that affect farm income and performance. A simple model, for example, could incorporate a farmer’s resources (cash, debt, fertilizer use, acreage, herd size, etc.) to determine the best way to maximize profits. He traveled extensively throughout the world, working in Costa Rica, Ethiopia, France, Guatemala, Indonesia and Pakistan.

Fast fact: In 1968, Heady organized the East-West Seminar, a gathering of 48 economists from 18 countries to discuss agricultural economics.

Stanley Johnson

Stanley Johnson came from the University of Missouri-Columbia to Iowa State in March 1985 to succeed Earl Heady as director of CARD. He was named a Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of Agriculture in 1990. Johnson bolstered new research areas in CARD, including food and nutrition policy and agricultural trade policy. He recruited talented faculty, staff and students to the center to strengthen CARD’s research capabilities and broaden its policy contributions. Johnson also refocused Heady’s well-known international work, forging research exchanges with many developing countries, most prominently with former Soviet republics. He started two popular annual policy conferences, the Fall Agricultural Policy Conference and the National Forum for Agriculture, to bring a diverse group together for discussion on U.S. agricultural issues. Johnson’s 11-year term as director concluded when he was appointed vice provost for Extension in 1996, a position he held until his retirement from ISU in 2006.

Fast fact: Much of the analysis used by Congress leading up to the 1985 farm bill — at a time of crisis for American agriculture — came from CARD under Johnson’s leadership.

Bruce Babcock

The third and current director of CARD, Bruce Babcock accepted the position in 1998, after serving five years as head of the Resource and Environmental Policy Division at the center. His environmental economics research looked at ways to increase the cost-benefit ratios of agricultural conservation programs. As director, Babcock has expanded CARD’s research programs into new areas of analysis in science and technology policy, biorenewables policy and risk management policy. In risk management, he works with the USDA’s Risk Management Agency to rate existing insurance products and to create innovative new products. Babcock has guided an anticipatory philosophy within CARD that moves the center’s resources and expertise toward the next policy questions on the horizon. CARD’s research on the impacts of biofuels on agriculture is one example. Babcock has been called upon by Congress and the USDA numerous times to share his expertise on a variety of topics, from weaknesses in the crop insurance program to the effects of renewable fuel mandates. He is in high demand as a conference speaker and as an expert for media reporters nationwide.

Fast fact: Babcock directs a budget of around $4 million in CARD, of which about 84 percent comes from grants and contracts.

Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute

In 1984, the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) was funded through a special appropriation of the U.S. Congress and established as a joint effort of Iowa State University and the University of Missouri-Columbia, with collaboration from economists at other universities. An econometric modeling system was developed at FAPRI to help evaluate trends in agricultural commodity markets. FAPRI’s first year of operation within CARD focused on providing Congress with quantitative analysis of alternative proposals for the 1985 farm bill, and the institute has provided analysis on every farm bill that has followed. Among the benefits that CARD derives from affiliation with FAPRI is an annual report, the U.S. and World Agricultural Outlook. The baseline projections in this report serve as a foundation for much of CARD’s ongoing policy research. The institute is a critical source of information for international agricultural trade negotiations, such as those made through the World Trade Organization, providing public, independent analyses of the policy impacts of multinational trade agreements.

Fast fact: FAPRI has received the Secretary’s Honor Award — the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

*Some historic photographs courtesy of the University Archives.

150 Points of Pride Archives