CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS FOR BETTER FOOD POLICY

Decisions, decisions. With limited resources—whether tax dollars or corporate margins—how do you get the biggest bang or greatest good for the buck?

Helen Jensen, a professor of economics, has spent much of her 26-year career at Iowa State University using the quantitative tools of economics to help make those decisions better informed in the areas of agriculture, food and human nutrition.

Jensen has led the food and nutrition policy division of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development since 1985, mentoring many students and young researchers along the way.

In the area of food safety and quality, Jensen was among the first to evaluate the economic rationale and implications of food safety regulations for meat.

“I have often looked at questions such as how much would it cost a firm or industry to change the way it produces a food, making it safer,” she says. “However, the interesting extensions are how do we design policies and regulations that encourage firms to produce safer foods?”

Lately she’s focusing on food safety in fresh produce, including before harvest. In August she walked the fields of a large lettuce grower in California, marveling at the many acres, and the company’s strict measures to prevent contamination in that living ecosystem.

“I was struck by the challenge growers face,” she says, “trying to turn a field growing fresh lettuce and greens into a unit that produces a safe product, protecting the field from rodents, birds and four-legged animals.”

New handling, processing and testing techniques help safeguard food. But will consumers pay for the highest levels of protection?

Consumer choice in the marketplace plays an important role in Jensen’s research. Lack of income can seriously constrain the choices of lower-income consumers. Higher-income consumers are faced with their own choice dilemmas: buy local, buy organic, eat in or eat out? Jensen analyze many consumption choices in the research she publishes.

Jensen’s research often extends science to the policy-making process. Her committee work on the review and redesign of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food programs to incorporate new scientific evidence on nutrition and diets is a perfect example. For the Women, Infants and Children program, it was the first major revision in its 40-year history.

“The new rules had several important changes, but one that has been most cited is introducing a voucher to be used to purchase fruits and vegetables,” she says.

That revision, along with similar ones for the national school lunch and breakfast programs, could potentially boost the nutrition of many individuals living in low-income households.

“Economics cannot solve all problems,” says Jensen, “but it can be used to identify effective interventions or changes and ways to improve incomes and improve health.”

PRACTICING THE CUTTING-EDGE

Russ Mullen helps Meaghan Bryan, a senior in agronomy, prepare for a presentation during an entrepreneurship unit of his agronomy course.

Russ Mullen has seen 14,000 students move through his classrooms since he joined the agronomy faculty in 1978. Of those, 10,000 were in the introductory agronomy course, which he has been teaching for more than 30 years.

“This is the course and students that continue to motivate me the most,” says Mullen. “It has given me a creative opportunity to innovate in teaching methods and improve learning tools for students.”

“Emphasis is placed on individualized learning rather than large group instruction with one-on-one instruction in a learning center,” he says. “Students have flexibility in structuring their learning and quizzing schedule, using a variety of tools such as computer-based video, practice learning and hands-on demonstrations.” Students also apply their learning by discussing and troubleshooting agronomic problems in weekly small group sessions.

Mullen serves on the faculty advisorypanel for the Agricultural EntrepreneurshipInitiative. “Many of our past innovations in agriculture have come from independent entrepreneurs, and I worry about the loss ofinnovation, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of our agricultural workforce,” he says. “It was natural for me to incorporate a component that helps introduce and strengthen entrepreneurship skills. ”The six-week unit covers basic principles in entrepreneurship and a team competition in which students develop an agricultural idea for a business and present their plans. The unit was patterned after “The Thinker” program Mullen added in 1998.

“Students are given technical problems with ethical and environmental ramifications and allowed to discuss them in small groups during the thinker exercise. Later, the questions and answers are discussed by the entire group,” Mullen says. “The idea is to encourage students to develop and appreciate broader issues associated with technical solutions.”

Mullen also teaches several other courses, and advises nearly 30 students each year. He was honored in 2010 as the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Adviser of the Year, plus received the ISU Award for Academic Advising Impact. He received the college’s Outstanding Teacher Award in 1998.

About 200 students have joined Mullen on 11 international trips. This year, he led 27 students on a two-week, winter break travel course through Panama to learn about tropical agriculture.

Mullen conducts research on the effects of environmental and biological stresses on seed quality, primarily soybean. And while he is proud of his research successes, it’s clear his first love is students.

“I’ve always believed the greatest overall, long-term impact I could make as a faculty member would be to teach and advise well,” Mullen says. “Education is the primary method of societal improvement. Teaching provides an exciting and challenging environment for growth of both the teacher and learner.”

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Extension plant pathologist Alison Robertson is a “plant doctor” who helps farmers diagnose and manage crop diseases.

A perfect day for Alison Robertson would have her standing in a corn or soybean field under a scorching sun, swimming in high humidity and taking questions from farmers.

“I love those summer months,” says Robertson, an assistant professor of plant pathology with research and extension responsibilities in field crop diseases. “I’ll take those days over any other.”

She listens carefully to questions posed by corn and soybean growers.  Many times they are seeds that germinate into new research.

Take white mold.

“2009 was a bad year for the disease.  In 2011, many growers will return to those hard-hit fields,” says Robertson.  “The Iowa Soybean Association recentlyfunded a proposal of ours to research ways to improve white mold management.  A lot of the ideas in our proposal came from growers, including evaluating the effectiveness of a biological control and of spraying fungicides.”

Another good example resulted from hailstorms that shredded corn fields in 2009. “We got a lot of questions about ear rots and mycotoxins,” she says. “As a result, we studied how hail affects grain quality and disease, which was recently published.”

Sometimes she feels like a jack of all trades, depending on what diseases are rearing their heads. Each growing season is completely different, which makes Robertson’s job challenging. Her current hit list includes anthracnose, sudden death syndrome, Phytopthora root rot and Goss’s wilt.

A common thread through her work is providing better management information to growers. For her, it’s rewarding, especially when she’s working closely with farmers and agronomists.

“The best part is teaching people how to diagnose the different diseases and talking about the management tactics available. I listen to growers who tell me how they’ve managed disease problems over the years. We share ideas. I’ve had people tell me something they learned really helped them and saved them thousands of dollars. That’s the best.”

A majority of today’s plant pathologists work at the genetic and molecular levels to better understand pathogen-crop interactions.  As a plant pathologist in Iowa, where about 23 million acres of beans and corn are grown each year, Robertson says her applied research is just as critically important.

“At the end of the day, growers are the most important people to me,” she says. “I want to help them grow the healthiest, best quality, highest yielding crops they can.”

Robertson does conduct some basic research. One of her Ph.D. students modified a way to evaluate soybean lines for multigene resistance to Phytopthora root rot, making it easier and more objective. They’re using the method to screen plants and look for new areas of potential resistance.

Besides farmers’ questions, she also gets asked about her work by people who haven’t a clue what a plant pathologist does.

“I simply tell them I’m a plant doctor,” Robertson says.  “I tell them sick plants can affect productivity, which can impact our food supply in many ways. My job is to help plants stay healthy.”

SEEING STUDENTS THROUGH PARENTS’ EYES

Barb Osborn (right) is the horticulture department’s award-winning student adviser.

Barb Osborn sees a little of her children in each student she advises.

Osborn says helping her children cope with transferring to Iowa State made her a better adviser for the horticulture department.

She’s the department’s head adviser, assigning students to advisers based on their commodity interests, such as turfgrass or fruit crops. But she keeps students who might not know what area they are interested in.

“I take a lot of the transfer students too, because I really enjoy looking at their transcripts to figure out how to best utilize their courses for a degree,” Osborn says.

Three of Osborn’s children are Iowa Staters. Her oldest daughter graduated with a food science degree, her second oldest daughter is asenior in the College of Human Sciences and her older son will transfer to horticulture’s turfgrass management program this fall. All went to community colleges and she helped them plan their courses
to get needed credits.

In a way, Osborn becomes part of each advisee’s extended family.

“It is not uncommon for me to have a phone call from a parent at 10 o’clock at night or an email for no other reason than to check in or to say, ‘Hi,’” she says.“Developing a rapport with them makes me a better adviser because I understand where the student comes from.”

Jeff Iles, horticulture department chair, says Osborn’s “ability to assist students and calm the fears of nervous parents is legendary.” Her abilities have garnered her the recognition of her peers. She won college awards for learning community coordination in 2009, student recruitment and retention in 2006 and outstanding advising in 2005. She was awarded the University Award for Academic Advising Impact in 2010.

Students frequently hang out in her office.

“Some have likened Barb to the kindly camp counselor, dispensing equal amounts of guidance and support, and when necessary, a dash of tough love,” Iles says.

Osborn’s parents got her involved in horticulture. Helping them garden gave way to working at a golf course in high school. Turfgrass and landscaping are still her personal interests.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education from Iowa State in 1983.  Osborn applied her training to restore the vocational agriculture program at Dexfield High, using horticulture to attract urban students. After earning a master’s degree in 1988 in ag education she taught commercial horticulture at Des Moines Area Community College before taking her present position in 1998.

Besides advising, Osborn teaches an orientation course in which seeking employment is a key component. She sounds like a doting parent describing
her goals for students.

“I want to see our students in a better place when they leave than when they come in, and by that I want them to be employed,” Osborn says.