The Iowa Pork Producers Association and Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council will partner with the Iowa Department of Agriculture along with a couple of local organizations on a “batch and build” water quality project in targeted Iowa watersheds.
The first phase of the “Pig Farmer Water Quality Partnership Program will focus on the priority watersheds of the North Raccoon and Boone Rivers. The initial phase is in place through June 30th of 2026. As the project grows, the goal will be to expand it into other targeted watersheds.
Partners for the project also include the Buena Vista and Calhoun County Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
The plan is to work with pork producers and other farmers and landowners who utilize manure as fertilizer to install edge-of-field practices such as bioreactors and saturated buffers using “batch and build” The model modernizes the project management process by installing batches of conservation practices on multiple farms at once to allow faster acceleration of water quality progresses.
Bioreactors and saturated buffers help filter and denitrify water as it leaves the farm field before it enters our waterways. The goal is to install 65 structures during the first year of the project.
