Southwest Iowa – March 24, 2026 – A newly announced extension of Iowa’s Cattle and Conservation Working Lands Project through 2028 signals growing momentum behind a simple idea: healthier soil leads to cleaner water—and grazing can help deliver both.
Secretary Mike Naig announced the extension this month (March 2, 2026). The project is active in six counties: Taylor, Page, Carroll, Cherokee, Guthrie, and Ida counties.
The farmer-led program supports producers in converting underperforming or highly erodible acres into pasture, integrating cover crops for forage, and adopting managed grazing systems. These practices keep living roots in the ground longer, improve soil structure, and reduce runoff—helping hold soil and nutrients in place rather than losing them to nearby waterways.
The results are scaling. More than 1,100 farmers have participated, transitioning over 16,000 acres to grazing systems and planting more than 195,000 acres of cover crops, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture.
An IAWA Iowa Watershed Award Winner is key to the program’s success. Erin Ogle, Taylor County Watershed Coordinator, helped spearhead the program in 2016, earning her a watershed award several years later.
For Ogle, it’s also about seeing her community thrive.
“This project has had such an impact on the community with a trickle effect. Dollars are coming in for livestock businesses, and they’re staying local for things like vet bills, seed, lime fertilizer, fencing stores, sale barns, and bankers,” Ogle said. “And when people can be successful here, they raise their families here, supporting local school systems and other businesses.”
What makes this approach stand out is that it keeps land productive. Instead of taking acres out of production, farmers are optimizing them.
The program extension comes at an important time for Iowa’s cattle industry, when the national herd is the smallest it has been in more than 75 years. Expanding well-managed pasture and forage systems provides an opportunity to responsibly grow cattle capacity while protecting water quality.
Adapted from an Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship press release.