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Iowa, Mississippi farmers to discuss hypoxia
A group of Iowa farmers and agricultural leaders will travel to Mississippi later this week to learn more about efforts to reduce pollution in the Gulf of Mexico.
It’s the first leg of an “Iowa-Mississippi Farmer to Farmer Exchange”, which is focused on growing understanding and expanding conservation practices in both states to address hypoxia in the Gulf. Iowa secretary of agriculture Bill Northey heads up the Iowa delegation.
“Of course, we’re tied together through the Mississippi River itself and concerns on hypoxia,” Northey says, “(we want) to understand a little bit more about the things they do to affect water quality down there—and then about a month and a half from now, bring the Mississippi folks up here and be able to look at some of the water quality things that we do.”
Northey says Iowa is proud of its efforts to reduce agricultural runoff, especially the establishment of some 75 water quality wetlands in the state.
“That’s actually something that the Mississippi folks—even though they don’t have underground drainage like we have—they’re looking at surface water,” says Northey, “kind of looking at some of the same techniques, to be able to look at surface water and decreased nutrients in that surface water by running them through wetlands.”
The hypoxic area, or “dead zone”, in the Gulf is a result of nitrogen and phosphorus from the Mississippi watershed flowing into the Gulf and spurring the growth of algae. When the algae decays, it depletes the water of oxygen to levels that cannot support marine life.
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