TY - JOUR T1 - Integrating farmer input and Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework results to develop watershed plans in Iowa JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 101A LP - 104A DO - 10.2489/jswc.2020.0226A VL - 75 IS - 4 AU - Karl Gesch AU - Adam Kiel AU - Todd Sutphin AU - Roger Wolf Y1 - 2020/07/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/75/4/101A.abstract N2 - The state of Iowa is a national leader in applying the watershed approach to improve water quality. In addition to protecting and improving local water resources, this effort is inspired by calls from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) for states in the Mississippi River Basin to reduce hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico (Stoner 2011; Beauvais 2016). The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy (INRS) was released in 2013 to establish a framework for reducing nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) loads to Iowa and downstream surface waters (IDALS et al. 2017).The INRS provides flexibility to local watershed stakeholders to identify appropriate ways to organize and implement conservation practices that reduce nutrient loss. To best accomplish this, the Iowa Soybean Association (ISA)—along with its farmer members and partner organizations—supports use of planning, implementation, and evaluation at the scale of 12-digit hydrologic unit code (HUC12) watersheds. Many HUC12 watersheds in Iowa are composed primarily of agricultural land (93%) or contain no point sources prioritized within the INRS (93%). These small, rural watersheds are the current scale and focus of most INRS-focused watershed projects in Iowa. To achieve INRS goals, the state of Iowa must transition from demonstration HUC12 watershed projects to full-scale, statewide implementation of the strategy. The INRS promotes a flexible, voluntary approach to reducing agricultural nutrient loading. As such, there is a need to create enabling conditions for broad increases in conservation adoption within the context of the watershed approach. Watershed planning has been and will continue to be a critical component of this effort.The ISA engages farmers … ER -