American Farmland Trust is coordinating with multiple regional agencies, agricultural associations, and universities to provide leadership training for watershed managers and professionals. Since 2011, Leadership for Midwestern Watersheds (LMW) has brought together watershed project directors and other stakeholders to compare notes and share lessons learned about watershed projects (sandcounty-foundation.org/our-work/soil-and-water-conservation/leadership-for-midwestern-watersheds).
In addition to AFT, the Sand County Foundation, Iowa Soybean Association, and North Central Region Water Network sponsor LMW meetings to encourage the exchange of information and improve watershed project performance in agricultural watersheds of the Upper Mississippi River Basin. For the last two years, the meetings were focused on comparing and contrasting nutrient loss reduction strategies from states in the region to learn successful strategies.
The Leadership for Midwestern Watersheds is a community of practice—a group of conservation practitioners who work to improve water quality at a watershed scale. When it meets, the group tackles topics that are essential to successful watershed projects, and presentations support facilitated discussions that are the meetings’ core. The focus has been on engaging farmers, targeting conservation practices for the greatest impact, measuring results, governing projects, and scaling up lessons learned. Watershed practitioners from Illinois consistently comprise about 20% of LMW meeting attendees.
