Bay Farms On-Farm Network – Making Conservation Pay
Better information is critical to better farm management. Without good information, it is very difficult to manage agricultural resources such as nitrogen and phosphorus for economic viability and environmental sustainability. This is especially true for farmers facing important water quality challenges combined with ever escalating nitrogen and fuel costs on the farm. In addition to enabling and fostering improved environmental viability and profitability, better farm management data collection and analysis enables farmers to assess and verify their performance, which will give them better access to emerging marketplace initiatives, such as nutrient and carbon trading, niche marketing, and other ecosystem service payment opportunities.
The goal of the Bay Farms On Farm Network is advance two critical components to driving improved farm-level performance…
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- Adaptive Management - Making it Work
Sunday, 6th of December, 2009.In the Chesapeake Bay, there is enormous opportunity to reduce nutrient loss from agriculture and improve water quality by aligning the financial interests of farmers and environmental stewardship. Nitrogen (N) is expensive. Farmers who use it more efficiently can improve their profits and minimize loss of N to the Bay. The lynchpin that makes this work is adaptive management. Adaptive management allows farmers to evaluate nutrient recommendations in cooperation with their peers, scientists, agricultural service providers, and consultants to make field-specific improvements that: 1) generate significant reductions in nutrient runoff, and 2) increase profits. Farmers typically make nutrient management decisions based on a generalized recommendation (algorithm) that is not field specific and that is largely disconnected from economic analysis.
In comparison, adaptive management enables farmers to compare the economic impacts of different management options based on field-specific information, including comparisons to the more generalized recommendation. To adopt an adaptive management strategy, farmers need access to new evaluative tools such as the cornstalk nitrate test and inexpensive aerial imagery and they need a process to take the information from these evaluative tools and feed it back into field-level management decisions. Equally important, they need a network that facilitates discussion, exchange and comprehension of the data.
The Bay Farms On-Farm Network significantly enhances the current approach to nutrient management by enabling farmers to fine-tune generalized recommendations to specific field and farm conditions, thereby greatly increasing the implementation and impact of nutrient management plans. This project builds from the ongoing work using adaptive management of the Bay Farms program in PA and extensive work with adaptive management by the Iowa Soybean Association’s (ISA) On-Farm Network. Bay Farms’ farmers reduced their N use by 27 pounds per acre and ISA’s farmers reduced their N use by one-third after participating for two or more years, with 80% ...
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