<\/p>\n
Yields are the driving force of modern agriculture. Whether
a farmer is growing corn to feed his dairy cows or someone else’s, he gets paid
by the ton. If he can apply a little extra of something that is cheap or free
(fertilizer or manure) in order to ensure a high yield, that’s a no-brainer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Although most agronomists will tell you that farmers
over apply nitrogen and can get the same yields without adding as much
fertilizer and manure as they do, few farmers are willing to take that risk for
an environmental benefit that doesn’t impact them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Thus, nitrogen pollution from farms is really a kind of market failure: individual farmers have little or no
incentive to act in a way that protects the groundwater beneath them. But the
public does have an interest in clean water; and public action will likely be
required to change the incentive structure.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Reducing risk<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Allen Dusault, program director at <\/p>\n That’s where risk-reduction programs such as the Best <\/p>\n The program, originally started by American Farmland Trust<\/a> and now run by a company called AgFlex<\/a>, is focused mostly in areas where nitrogen runoff is <\/p>\n Farmers who enroll in California’s BMP Challenge agree to <\/p>\n Rocha was one of the five dairy farmers that Dusault <\/p>\n Next year Sustainable Conservation hopes to enroll about 20 <\/p>\n Speaking of risk, Rocha did have slightly lower yields this <\/p>\n Limiting risk is a key component in getting farmers to try <\/p>\n “There really is a barrier to adoption of <\/p>\n The BMP Challenge gets farmers over the financial hurdle. <\/p>\n “There’s nothing unattractive about it,” he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Taking it national<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Of course, paying farmers to try new practices can get <\/p>\n In Hoefner’s view, modest programs like the BMP Challenge could have a <\/p>\n The HDTV Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Rocha didn’t get his usual yields last year, but he’s game to <\/p>\n “If it’s out there next year, if there’s another <\/p>\n In the long run, what matters most is the effect that Rocha’s <\/p>\n Sustainable Conservation’s Dusault calls programs like BMP <\/p>\n Manure management isn’t as much fun as watching Peyton Manning <\/p>\n The truth is it’s too early to tell how Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n Farmer-consumer group challenges FDA authority to ban interstate raw-milk sales<\/a><\/p>\n Corporate farming to trump saving salmon?<\/a><\/p>\n USDA releases strict new pasture rules for organic dairy<\/a><\/p>\n
Sustainable Conservation<\/a>,
a California group that works with farmers to develop economically-feasible
approaches to improving environmental practices, has thought a lot about the N
problem. What’s needed, he says, “is a way to insure the financial viability of crop production methods
without creating such a surplus of nitrogen that you have runoff.” <\/p>\n
Management Practices (BMP) Challenge come in. The BMP Challenge, a unique
program available in 18 major farming states, allows farmers to try
environmentally-beneficial management techniques by offering to pay them for
any costs they might incur in the process.<\/p>\n
causing big problems: the Chesapeake Bay, Mississippi River watershed, the
Great Lakes Region, and now California dairies.<\/p>\n
apply less manure to their corn, and to try and target that application at
times when the corn will actually absorb most of the nitrogen in the manure. If farmers’
yields dip, the program compensates them for their loss. If their yields increase or hold
steady, farmers pocket the savings from reduced fertilizer use and higher yields.<\/p>\n
and Sustainable Conservation first approached in 2009 about taking the BMP Challenge.
“We don’t look for these new programs,” says Rocha, whose environmental
consultant turned him on to the program. “But when stuff comes our way,
we do take a listen to it.”<\/p>\n
dairy producers in the San Joaquin Valley, according to senior project manager
Ladi Asgill. The program is appealing, says Asgill, because it “offers an
opportunity for dairies to experiment and work out the kinks in implementing a
new practice, where we offer risk coverage, basically.”<\/p>\n
year. But he also learned a lot about how to time his irrigations and apply
manure more efficiently. With a few years practice, Rocha believes he could get
to the point where he sees “the same [yields] with less [manure].”<\/p>\n
new practices that have favorable environmental results, says Ferd Hoefner,
policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition<\/a>[4]<\/a>,
a D.C.-based policy group.<\/p>\n
practices, even practices that on average are great net-return kinds of
practices for farmers,” Hoefner says. “They fear there will be some
kind of cost of production.”<\/p>\n
For Rocha, it was a “no-fear” option.<\/p>\n
expensive. Farm conditions vary and the program has to pony up to pay for yield
reductions. Ideally, says policy analyst Hoefner, the program might work
well as a kind of national insurance policy for farmers willing to try something new.<\/p>\n
lot of short-term impact. But when it comes to creating truly sustainable agriculture
systems, Hoefner says his organization would like to see more support for
widespread systemic changes in how dairy farms, and other farming systems,
operate. Such changes would include returning to traditional pasture-based
grazing systems, and exchanging concentrated animal feeding operations such as
Rocha’s for smaller livestock production approaches that integrate animals into
farming systems with techniques such as rotational grazing<\/a>.<\/p>\n
try the BMP Challenge or some other similar program again.<\/p>\n
program to be had, we’ll take a good hard look at it again,” he says. “If we
wind up with … [a] little less nitrogen, that’s better for us, better for the
ground.”<\/p>\n
experiment has on his dairy farming neighbors. If they see him getting more yield
with less manure, they may start doing what he’s doing—and if that happens, the practice of smart nitrogen use could snowball.<\/p>\n
Challenge “showcasing,” and likens Rocha to the early adopters who
bought the first HDTVs. (25 percent of American
households had high definition televisions in 2007; 50 percent had them in 2009<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
launch a Hail Mary in hi-def, though, and if California dairies follow the same
trend as California farmers who failed to adopt conservation tillage<\/a>, Dusault’s HDTV penetration model may not apply.<\/p>\n
effective the BMP Challenge for California’s dairies will be. What is clear is that unless
government steps in to share some risk or change financial incentives, farmers across the country will likely continue overdosing their fields with nitrogen—to the detriment of our ecosystems and our health.<\/p>\n
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