Rural Development honors water quality management this Earth Day

USDA Rural Development is celebrating Earth Day by announcing projects to improve water quality and benefit rural residents. As part of the celebration, USDA is providing $105 million in funding for 53 water, wastewater, and community facilities projects across the country.

USDA and EPA officials tour Iowa farms

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson partnered this week to tour select Iowa farms. The trip allowed both directors to speak with farmers who are championing the use of innovative conservation practices.

Legislation to promote local food in New York

In an effort to reduce carbon emissions and keep food dollars in-state, New York State Senator David Carlucci (D-Rockland/Orange) has proposed legislation that would give tax breaks to eateries that source their food from within a 100-mile radius.

Battling pests without pesticides

Ayanava Majumdar, an Auburn University Extension entomologist and Alabama state coordinator for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education, introduces a new tool for Integrated Pest Management (IPM) in the Southeast. Majumdar proposes “trap crops” as a sustainable way for that region’s farmers to mitigate the effects of insect pests on their vegetable production.

Veterans come home to sustainable farming

The Farmer-Veteran Coalition, a project of the nonprofit Community Partners, is accepting applications from veterans who are interested in beginning a career in sustainable farming. Applicants to the program will have the opportunity to attend the “Coming Home to Farm” retreat, an educational introduction to organic agriculture in Iowa.

Nebraska family wins 2011 Leopold Conservation Award

A ranch family in Potter, Nebraska, was honored with the prestigious 2011 Leopold Conservation Award on Thursday. The award is named for world-renowned conservationist, Aldo Leopold, and was awarded to the Potter family for decades of rotating pastures to prevent overgrazing.

Earth Day: a time to celebrate farms and farmers

Wyoming Governor Matt Mead sees Earth Day as an opportunity to honor farmers and ranchers in his state by signing a proclamation to make June 21 Wyoming Environmental Stewardship Day. The state will celebrate this day each year by providing tours of a ranching operation that uses natural resource stewardship practices to benefit the environment while enhancing productivity and profitability.

Meanwhile, the Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts is finding its own way to celebrate Earth Day by offering the crops grown on its farm—using traditional and time-tested approaches to conservation—to its surrounding community via a Community Supported Agriculture model.

The Oklahoma Farm Bureau allows its farmers and ranchers to do the talking this Earth Day, providing a list of producers who will be available all day today to answer questions about their conservation practices.

Peter Gallo, a California dairy farmer, reminds us of the role dairy farms have played in pioneering sustainable practices. He asks us to celebrate this Earth Day “with a tall cold glass of real California milk.”

The following testimony on “Creating Abundant Water and Power Supplies and Job Growth by Restoring Common Sense to Federal Regulations” was given by Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust, on April 5, 2011 to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water Power.

I begin my testimony today by acknowledging the tremendous demands and pressures facing U.S. agriculture.  With a global population anticipated to reach 9 billion, we will need to “produce more, with less,” nearly doubling production with less land, less water and less inputs. I also acknowledge that there are legitimate environmental concerns associated with agricultural production. But I firmly believe that farmers and ranchers, if engaged properly, hold the key to solutions to a lot of the environmental challenges our Nation faces. In fact, without them it is unlikely we can solve these challenges.

Last year, USDA published Conservation Effects Assessment Project reports for the Upper Mississippi River Basin and the Chesapeake Bay, known as the CEAP reports. The reports documented the significant progress and accomplishment of farmers and ranchers in improving environmental performance. For example, in the Bay sediment loss had been reduced 55 percent, nitrogen runoff 42 percent and phosphorus by 41 percent since the baseline period. These are real reductions, real improvements.

However, these reports also highlighted serious environmental concerns attributable to agriculture that remain to be addressed.  In the Upper Mississippi, it stated 8.5 million acres or 15% of the cropped acres “are critically under-treated for one or more of sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus loss.” These are real challenges, real areas of focus.

So the question then becomes, what is the most effective way to change the behavior of farmers on a landscape scale to take those next steps toward cleaner air and water? I submit that economic incentives and markets, not widespread regulation, are the most effective ways to change behavior in the field; however, we must recognize the fact that a regulatory framework is needed to propel progress.

An effective regulatory framework is important because it provides several things.  First, it assures a basic level of performance that is needed to control pollution.  Second, it assures fair competition and a more level playing field for those who do the right thing to protect their farms and ranches.  And third, it provides a measure of accountability.  We won’t know if we are making sufficient progress if we don’t have a yard stick by which to measure.

I suggest three points on the way to move forward:

1)  Build a “culture of collaboration”

Virtually every farmer will tell you that he or she wants to leave their farm in better shape for their children than when they got it.  In my years at EPA, I can attest to spending many hours working through concerns the agency had with agriculture. It was evident to me that these “regulators” cared about the environment and wanted to assure that appropriate actions were taken to achieve important objectives.  We shared common objectives, but our approach to solving problems and the language we used to communicate were very different.

A recent example helps illustrate what I mean. Eighteen months ago EPA Region III staff began a series of farm inspections in Chesapeake Bay states to assess compliance with state and federal regulations.  When EPA inspectors arrived in the Watson Run watershed in Lancaster County, PA, not many doorbells were answered. After an inauspicious start, the head of the county conservation district suggested that district staff could help by arranging visits and accompanying the inspection team. With the assistance of trusted local partners, all 24 farms were visited in relatively short order.

What did they find? Things weren’t perfect. Many of the farms did not have conservation and manure management plans required by state law. But EPA staff also discovered significantly more conservation practices on the ground than what they had expected to find. What started as a predictably contentious regulatory process turned into a collaborative effort focused on what needed to be done  – demonstrating to both sides the effectiveness of balancing regulation with trusted technical assistance.

2) Combine incentives and regulations; both carrots and sticks.

We should rely on incentives and markets to drive the change in behavior, not the regulation of each producer. Simply applying traditional point source regulation to all farmers, to all non-point sources for that matter, won’t work. Even taking CAFO rules and applying them to all animal operations, won’t be the most effective approach. It will not get us where we want to and need to get — “clean water and viable farms.”

3)  Provide regulatory certainty

A common complaint I’ve heard from producers has been they are never certain if they take prescribed actions, that will satisfy the regulators.  Our environmental policy must provide some sort of “safe harbor” or regulatory relief. If he or she has a plan and is on track in making changes in conservation practices, they should not be faced with onerous regulatory burdens that can make it difficult for them to stay in business. EPA needs reasonable assurance; farmers need safe harbor.

Farming is unique.  It’s one of the few businesses where two, three, or even five generations of family members continue to own and operate the family business.  As farmers, we have to take a long term view if our farms are to thrive for our children, and their children.  We need an approach that builds the trust, cooperation and innovation needed to make agriculture a part of the solution our Nation’s efforts to clean our air and water.

About the Author: Jon Scholl is President of American Farmland Trust. Prior to AFT, he served as Counselor to the Administrator for Agriculture Policy at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Jon and his family operate a corn and soybean farm in McLean County, Illinois.

Fresh water across America is threatened by many sources, from manufacturing and waste treatment emissions to storm water drainage.  Agriculture also plays a role—nutrient runoff from agriculture is a primary cause of degradation in two-thirds of our coastal waterways.

But as the single largest user of land and water resources in America, farmers and ranchers can be a major part of the solution to this environmental challenge faced by our nation.

That is why we have made a commitment to address issues of clean water by joining the Charting New Waters coalition, an effort launched by the participants of the Johnson Foundation at Wingspread’s Freshwater Summit. Members of Charting New Waters vow to tackle environmental health and community sustainability by addressing the challenges of clean water through their own unique commitments.

As part of the coalition:

We will continue to engage both farmers and the public around the challenges and solutions of maintaining a clean supply of freshwater. We will continue to meet with agricultural producers to discuss ways to overcome barriers to improvements in how they manage their land resources and will seek to implement the appropriate policies.

We recognize that farmers want to be good stewards of the land, but they need policies and programs that help them produce environmental benefits and reward them when they do. Our Agriculture & Environment initiative has been pursuing policies at the federal and state level to increase funding for conservation while working with farmers on-the-ground to boost their adoption of conservation practices.

A single farm can have a tremendous impact on improving water quality. Through programs like the BMP Challenge and efforts to develop public and private ecosystem services markets, we are helping farmers and ranchers overcome barriers to adopting conservation practices.  For example, in one year, farmers in our BMP Challenge program in Pennsylvania reduced fertilizer runoff to the Chesapeake Bay equal to the pollution footprint of 285 households!

If farmers can achieve such gains, so can you, and together we can move forward with a shared commitment to preserve clean water. The nation’s freshwater resources are among the most critical investment in our future. Protecting our water quality truly is a commitment, requiring a conscious effort for change.  And that is something we can work toward together.

Pledge to protect America’s waterways by taking our Clean Water Challenge: Match a Farmer’s Commitment.

About the Author: Ann Sorensen, Ph.D. is Director of Research at American Farmland Trust. She currently sits on the EPA’s Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee.

This opinion piece was featured in The Delmarva Farmer.

As a person involved in my family’s farm operation, a former EPA agricultural appointee, and the President of American Farmland Trust, an organization that supports farms and conservation, let me be the first to say that our nation faces serious environmental challenges and that agriculture has a central role, both as contributor to the problems and as part of the solution.

Lawsuits are the worst possible and least effective way to address environmental issues, even in the Chesapeake Bay.

In the process of filing suit, trust is destroyed, the environmental challenges get oversimplified and lots of time and money get wasted while the problems persist.

Unfortunately, litigation sets up a fight between clean water and viable farms when there are ways to co-exist—because in the end, both agriculture and environmentalists have a common goal: clean water, a plentiful supply of food and a healthy environment for future generations.

Amidst the shouting and courtroom drama, the stories of producers doing their part to clean up the Bay waters, or of successful collaborations between farmers and environmentalists, will get lost.

At American Farmland Trust (AFT), we are committed to clean water and viable farms, and we know those are not mutually exclusive.

Through our work we’ve seen that there ARE solutions to the Bay’s environmental issues that have the support of agriculture and environmental stakeholders.

What works? The solutions must emanate from a culture of collaboration. Farmers are pragmatic, and they are willing to acknowledge agriculture’s role in contributing to the Bay’s water quality problems. And as someone involved in my family’s farm operation, I know that we want to do our part, to be a part of the solution. When we resort to all or nothing positions, trust and compromise become even more difficult to achieve.

Environmentalists need to acknowledge the complexity of agricultural issues, and together, all of us need to acknowledge that the solutions to help agriculture do its part in cleaning up the Bay are expensive. Simply put, the economic concerns of Chesapeake watershed farmers are not baseless—in fact, they are beyond what most consumers and business owners can comprehend.

We will not get past these barriers, and find a workable combination of farm techniques, policies and regulations to address until all sides talk to each other with patience and reason—two qualities the courtroom doesn’t readily assure.

Over the last 30 years, AFT has worked to bridge the divide between agriculture and environmental interests through policy efforts at the local, state and national level. We’ve bridged the divide through research, and directly by convening disparate interests.

In recent years, AFT has worked with farmers to demonstrate an innovative system that addresses the financial risks that farmers face when adopting new Bay-friendly production methods.

I know our nation’s environmental issues are challenging. I know that finding solutions to the issues of the Chesapeake Bay seem daunting.

I have seen what “opponents” can accomplish when they form a new team and work toward their common goals.

Let’s not delay. Let’s leave the drama in the courtroom, and work together on a new farm team to find solutions that keep our farms and the Bay healthy, now.

About the Author: Jon Scholl is President of American Farmland Trust. Prior to AFT, he served as Counselor to the Administrator for Agriculture Policy at the United States Environmental Protection Agency and as Executive Assistant to the President of the Illinois Farm Bureau.

Alien-looking contraptions with metal arms protrude out of farm fields throughout the state of Washington. Look closer and you’ll see gauges on the arms measuring all kinds of weather data, from temperature and precipitation to wind, dew point, solar radiation and humidity. The stations—part of Washington’s AgWeatherNet—relay data to a website (weather.wsu.edu) that farmers and the public can check for free information on current weather and agricultural conditions.

“I don’t know a farmer or field consultant who doesn’t use it,” says Washington State University (WSU) plant pathologist and AgWeatherNet director Gary Grove. “Over an eight year period, we went from a few people using it to everyone.” The network—launched in part by a grant from the EPA and American Farmland Trust—is one of the most advanced of its kind in the country. Farmers use it to make decisions about everything from irrigation and pruning to fertilizer and pesticide use. (And can sign up for text messages alerting them to adverse weather conditions).

Grove and other WSU researchers are using the weather data—along with disease and insect models—to help growers predict potential insect and disease outbreaks. By better assessing the risk from such threats, the network is helping farmers reduce their chemical use. Grape growers, for instance, have been able to use the data to better time their efforts to combat powdery mildew that infects grapevines. “We’ve reduced fungicide use over 27 percent with wine grapes,” Grove says.

This profile, along with many others can be found in the Integrated Pest Management cover story of our 2010 summer issue of American Farmland magazine. You can get your yearlong subscription by becoming a member of American Farmland Trust today.

About the Author: Kirsten Ferguson is Editor/Writer for American Farmland Trust. She works in the Saratoga, NY office and can be reached at kferguson [at] farmland.org

Washington’s Yakima Valley, a terrain of rugged hillsides and golden desert, is one of the top wine regions in the country. With an ideal climate for grapes and well-drained soils deposited by prehistoric floods, the valley is home to a third of the state’s vineyards. But the region’s many growers of wine and juice grapes face a formidable foe: the climbing cutworm. The nocturnal insect lives in vineyard soil, crawling from the ground in early spring. “The cutworm prefers to climb up the trunk and eat the buds that are swelling on the grape vine. Then the fruit’s gone,” explains Rick Hamman, viticulturist for Hogue Ranches and Mercer Estate Winery in Prosser, Washington.

Previously, Yakima Valley grape growers dealt with the cutworm threat by spraying an organophosphate insecticide that ended up killing beneficial insects while only minimally controlling cutworms. But then entomologist Doug Walsh from Washington State University in Prosser—a recipient of a research grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and American Farmland Trust—hit upon a better solution. His research team figured out they could apply a more environmentally friendly insecticide in a highly targeted fashion that avoided impacts to beneficial insects. By spraying only a banded area of the vine’s trunk rather than the entire vineyard canopy, cutworms were discouraged from climbing and destroying the fruit.

“The growers started using this solution, and it was a real cost savings to them,” says Walsh. “The grower response within two years was universal. At this point I think every grower around here has adopted this practice in some form.”

The innovation is saving Washington growers about $5.5 million a year and has reduced insecticide use by 84 percent, according to WSU researchers. “This has been great and has really helped us,” says Hamman. “It is a total success story. Doug nailed it. You can’t just sit back and do the same old thing. You’ve got to try something new.”

Click here to support funding for this and similar projects utilizing Integrated Pest Management.

A weekly roundup of news and events concerning food, farms, the environment, local communities- and anything else that may catch our eye.

Beginning farmers are getting a boost from the USDA through a program that helps them gain access to affordable land. The Transition Incentive Program (TIP) preserves existing farmland and supports new sustainable agriculture operations by allowing retiring farmers and ranchers to transition their farmland to new farmers. But, as always there are a few guidelines to follow in order to participate in the program.

In the Midwest, the Central Illinois Farm Beginnings education program is also assisting new and entrepreneurial farmers in an effort to increase collaboration within the region. Through the Central Illinois Sustainable Farming Network (CISFN), Farm Beginning graduates continue their education through workshops participation, mentor relationships, and access to a network of farmers with similar interests.

Concern over the relationship between farmland loss and diminishing food supplies was the topic of an article by Politics Daily columnist Bonnie Erbe. The story featured AFT’s own Julia Freedgood who commented on the average loss of a million acres of American farmland each year!

In the political realm, a recent letter to the EPA and to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack voiced concerns over the analysis informing proposed climate and energy legislation.  Previous examination, the organizations contend, excluded potential offset types and subsequently skewed the findings.  The group, which included American Farmland Trust, expressed their desire for the EPA and USDA to work more closely with the agriculture community to better understand the possible effects the most recent legislative proposals may have on the agriculture community.

Our own Dennis Nuxoll recently spoke at a clean energy and climate change workshop in Fargo, ND, where proposed cap and trade legislation has beet farmers in North Dakota’s Red River Valley anxious over the industry’s future. However, Nuxoll noted that an analysis by Informa Economics, Inc. for the National Association of Wheat Growers and American Farmland Trust shows that a direct regulation scheme by the EPA will harm agriculture and farmers more than clean energy legislation.

Finally, be on the lookout for Senate Ag Committee hearings regarding the 2012 Farm Bill. The hearings kick-off in Washington with various dates, locations and topics over the next few months.

Recently I headed up an American Farmland Trust study where a team of researchers from the University of Arizona, Colorado State University and New Mexico State University looked at the potential effects of climate legislation on the agricultural economies in their region.

This was an interesting question to look at since agriculture in these states is very diverse- as is the geography and climate. Agriculture production in this region includes grain crops, dairy and cattle, cotton, fruit, vegetable and nuts. I am not aware of any other studies that have looked at this question.

As expected, the team of researchers found that farmers and ranchers will be challenged by climate legislation.  However, it is noteworthy that overall there are improved revenue opportunities from higher crop prices, new biofuels markets, carbon sequestration and offsets.

Coming from a farm family, I know that any cost increases are tough to absorb when one has to consistently operate with tight profit margins. Therefore I was surprised to learn from the analysis that while input costs will go up, provisions in the legislation would likely limit fertilizer increases to between 0.3% and 2% by 2020, and energy cost increases between 4% and 13% in 2020.

These are increases I think farmers can plan for and live with, especially since the analysis also showed that the higher commodity prices estimated by many studies could largely offset these projected price increases. Grazing and confined livestock operations may be able to use methane digester technologies to generate income from carbon offsets and electricity generation.

Even for those farmers facing the greatest challenge―those with high feeding costs or traditional ranchers, the study shows that the cost increases are well within the range of recent energy-price variability. I know that sometimes cost increases seem to be very real, and much more certain than revenue increases to farmers, but I think this study may give farmers some measure of confidence that we’re looking at a timeframe that should allow them time to adjust.

Climate and clean energy legislation have been on and off the federal legislative agenda this past year. At the moment, it looks like it may come back again. At American Farmland Trust, we believe it is important to have a well-respected third-party like this team to review the studies and look at the various legislative and economic scenarios. Then we can better understand costs and opportunities and find good policy options.

Agriculture can play an important role in helping reduce and mitigate greenhouse gasses. If Congress doesn’t pass a clean energy bill,the EPA is mandated by the Supreme Court to enact regulations under the Clean Air Act, which will affect agriculture. Those regulations are going in place now.

My family knows that regulations cost our farm money.  That’s why personally and professionally I think it’s important to be proactive – to work together in agriculture to help shape policy directly by making sure policy makers include options that will reduce and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and maximize the economic opportunities for farmers to sequester carbon, reduce greenhouse gasses and produce low carbon, renewable energy.

Click here to see the key findings of the study and to download it in its entirety.

Anita Zurbrugg, a licensed attorney, is AFT’s Assistant Director for the Center for Agriculture in the Environment in DeKalb, IL. The CAE serves as the focal point for AFT’s public policy research.

Before I came to American Farmland Trust, I was the Counselor to the Administrator for Agricultural Policy at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). One of my primary efforts at EPA was to start the first-ever agricultural advisory committee for the agency so that they might advise the agency on how environmental policy issues affect farms, ranches and rural communities.

Why? To foster a better understanding between farmers and the EPA so that each group might have a better sense of the challenges each face in their work.

Nearly 150 people from farmers, ranchers, rural suppliers, academics who study agricultural and environmental issues and others applied to be on the committee for a two-year term, with a diverse group of 29 selected to make up the group. Our former president, Ralph Grossi, just completed a term—and I was glad to have someone from American Farmland Trust on the advisory board.

The group was charged with several tasks: to help the agency understand the effects on agriculture of EPA programs, policies and regulations related to climate change and renewable energy; to help develop a national environmental strategy for livestock operations; and to find a framework to address the common interests between sustainable agriculture and protection of the environment.

I learned a lot from this experience. First, that the agency and farmers are challenged to communicate because each group has a very different language and lots of acronyms for describing their work and what they want to accomplish. Second—both face challenges—one group in running viable farms and ranches, the other in running a regulatory agency with lots of statutorily prescribed duties. An important perspective that the advisory group brings is to help the agency find ways to meet its environmental goals in ways that will allow farmers to remain profitable.

But I also learned that after all is said and done, both groups have a common goal: to leave the land better than when they started.

As a second group of citizens from across the country are selected to serve on EPA’s Farm, Ranch and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee, I have some words of wisdom to share:  a common understanding isn’t something that always comes overnight. Stick with the process—after a few meetings, you’ll have developed stronger relationships and better solutions to the very real environmental issues we face in our country.

About the Author: Jon Scholl is President of American Farmland Trust. Prior to AFT, he served as Counselor to the Administrator for Agriculture Policy at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Jon and his family operate a corn and soybean farm in McLean County, Illinois.

On the outskirts of Wenatchee, a city in the heart of central Washington where golden hills surround endless miles of irrigated fruit orchards, a large apple-shaped sign reads, “Apple Capital of the World.” In a region that ships over 100 million boxes of apples a year around the nation and the world, education has been the key to helping growers—especially the valley’s many Latino orchard employees and managers—reduce their use of pesticides.

Apple and cherry grower Jesus Limón, who worked his way up the ranks at a fruit company in order to purchase his own Wenatchee Valley orchard, participated in a Latino orchard employee education program—funded by an EPA grant administered by American Farmland Trust—that teaches growers in Spanish about integrated pest management (IPM).

“You get hooked on it,” Limon says about the natural techniques for identifying and eliminating orchard pests. Since the 1970s, researchers have been exploring safer and more ecologically sound ways to manage pests like insects and plant diseases. IPM includes sustainable methods such as scouting for pests, weather monitoring, disruptions to a pest’s life cycle, and ways to reinforce a pest’s natural enemies.

The Wenatchee-region IPM classes—taught initially by pest management consultant Naná Simone and then by Leo Garcia and other IPM experts at Wenatchee Valley College—were integral in helping Limón reduce the use of pesticides in his orchard, which he then converted to 100 percent organic over a three-year period. “Knowledge is the best thing you can acquire,” Limón says. “The classes helped me tremendously because I couldn’t depend on the conventional sprays anymore.”

Limón’s conversion of his orchard to organic had a domino effect on the farms around him. “This guy just became organic and then the next guy and next guy,” Limón says, pointing to neighboring apple orchards. The program’s classes were such a success not only because the Spanish language instruction helped growers understand the complexities of IPM more quickly, but also because they were taught right in the student’s orchards and fit around the schedule of the farmers.

 “This is a much better way to get people to change,” Limón says. “This program got us away from [conventional chemicals] without forcing us. Trying to work with the farmer is better than being the mean guy on the block. If the EPA knew what this program really did for us, they would do more programs like it.”

Limón proudly points to wooden hawk boxes he installed on poles lining the rows of his apple trees. After two years, he finally got a family of hawks to move into his orchard. The hawks scare away birds that like to peck apples and cherries off the trees. This natural approach to managing wildlife is also an outgrowth of learning about IPM, Limón says. “I liked learning about how the bug populations worked. Once you start putting the pieces together, you see everything: the mice, the snakes, the cougars.”