Getting #%@$ done in Iowa with Batch and Build… On the Road

Episode 82 | 41 min

With Guests:

Ruth McCabe, Conservation Team Lead of Heartland Co-op
Matt McDonald, Water Quality Projects Coordinator of Iowa Department of Ag and Land Stewardship

We are on the road in this episode of The Water Table Podcast. We stopped in at the Iowa LICA Farm Field Days to catch up on all the latest and greatest in water management. Iowa leads the country in production of corn, eggs, pork, ethanol and red meat. Find out why they also lead in building saturated buffers and bioreactors. It’s all about partnerships and their push for Batch and Build projects.

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Part of the first batch and build was to prove this was possible. We’re proving this is successful, and we can work with anybody. We limit ourselves if we don’t partner with others, which is why Iowa has over 350 partners with our water quality initiative program. And it's growing.

— Matt McDonald

Guest Bios

Ruth McCabe

Ruth McCabe leads the Conservation Team at Heartland Co-op. She is a passionate advocate for sustainable farming practices in the Midwest and has devoted her career to working with farmers who want to adopt conservation into their management plans. Ruth is a Certified Professional Agronomist, an Iowa CCA, and has her M.S. in Crop Production and Physiology from Iowa State University. Prior to her current role, Ruth worked as a technical agronomist, organic agronomist and research agronomist around the Midwest for over a decade. Her favorite topic to talk about is pheasant hunting and she specializes in cover crops, prairie management, and edge-of-field structures.

Matt McDonald

Matt McDonald has worked as the Water Quality Projects Coordinator for the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship since November of 2019. Matt develops projects with different organizations and landowners who are interested in installing water quality infrastructure such as saturated buffers, bioreactors, multi-use oxbow restorations, and grade stabilization structures. Previously he has worked as a Field Representative managing a territory of 34 counties where he represented the State of Iowa promoting soil conservation work and with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Matt has worked for private engineering companies doing survey work, soil lab work, construction materials testing, geotechnical drilling work, and as an environmental consultant.

Matt is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Geology and a Minor in Agriculture Science.

Podcast Episode 82