Improving water quality knowledge through a focus on partnership: A University of Wisconsin Discovery Farms case study (original) (raw)
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INDUCING FARMER PARTICIPATION IN A WATERSHED LEVEL PROGRAM TO IMPROVE WATER QUALITY
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Widespread adoption of agricultural conservation measures in Lake Erie's Maumee River watershed may be required to reduce phosphorus loading that drives harmful algal blooms and hypoxia. We engaged agricultural and conservation stakeholders through a survey and workshops to determine which conservation practices to evaluate. We investigated feasible and desirable conservation practices using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool calibrated for streamflow, sediment, and nutrient loading near the Maumee River outlet. We found subsurface placement of phosphorus applications to be the individual practice most influential on March−July dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) loading from row croplands. Perennial cover crops and vegetated filter strips were most effective for reducing seasonal total phosphorus (TP) loading. We found that practices effective for reducing TP and DRP load were not always mutually beneficial, culminating in trade-offs among multiple Lake Erie phosphorus management goals. Adoption of practices at levels considered feasible to stakeholders led to nearly reaching TP targets for western Lake Erie on average years; however, adoption of practices at a rate that goes beyond what is currently considered feasible will likely be required to reach the DRP target.
Water Quality Targeting Success Stories
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Farmers operate on 915 million acres of farmland, or about 40 percent of all land in the United States. They are critically important stewards of the soil, wildlife, and water resources sharing that landscape. The long-term viability of their farming businesses depends on the good management of these agriculturally influenced ecosystems. But farmers are facing unprecedented challenges to meet food production demands, remain economically viable, and solve water quality problems associated with food, fiber, and energy production. Over 15,000 water bodies are listed as "impaired" because of pollution from excess nutrients associated with cropland, pastureland, grazing land, and animal feeding areas. And many more water bodies are impaired by agriculture-related sediment, livestock pathogens, and pesticides. These frequently invisible problems can limit the use of rivers and lakes for drinking water, recreational activities, aquatic habitat, and more. This report recommends a set of actions that could be taken by USDA, EPA, Congress, charitable foundations, and the corporate supply chain communities to help RCPP projects realize their full potential. If these stakeholders make the program changes, provide the increased funding, and disseminate the technical guidance called for in this report, RCPP project leaders will be able to quantify conservation results, at both watershedand field-scale. Not only will this demonstrate how farmers are good stewards of the land, but it will provide solid evidence that voluntary, incentivebased conservation works.
Why is reducing water pollution from agriculture such a stubbornly slow process? Despite several policy initiatives since the 1970s, farms and ranches rank as the primary contributors to impairments of the nation's surface waters [U.S.EPA, 1994b]. 2 Emerging research also points to agricultural chemicals in many cases of groundwater contamination [Barbash and Resek; Mueller, et al.]. After a little reflection, the industry's negative distinction may not be surprising. Covering nearly half the U.S. land base, crop and livestock production inevitably alter natural vegetative cover, apply fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation water, and involve animal wastes. All of these pr ocesses can degr ade water quality.
Agricultural Phosphorus Management and Water Quality Protection in the Midwest
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The Heartland Initiative creates and strengthens multi-state, multi-institutional Service. The Heartland Initiative creates and strengthens multi-state, multi-institutional Service. The Heartland Initiative creates and strengthens multi-state, multi-institutional partnerships and collaboration to make research, education and extension resources of partnerships and collaboration to make research, education and extension resources of partnerships and collaboration to make research, education and extension resources of the land grant universities more accessible to federal, state and local efforts on regional the land grant universities more accessible to federal, state and local efforts on regional the land grant universities more accessible to federal, state and local efforts on regional priority water issues.
Chapter 5 Farmers as Producers of Clean Water: A Field Experiment
Will there be enough clean water? That is a question that bedevils societies everywhere. In developing countries, both point and nonpoint sources of pollution represent important threats to water quality (Duda, 1993; Tonderski, 1996). Conversely, in developed countries like the US, point sources have been sufficiently regulated such that significant progress has been made in dealing with this source of water pollution (Hetling et al. 2003; Murchison 2005). Nonpoint source pollution (NPSP) related to agriculture is now considered one of the largest remaining water quality problems in the US (See US EPA 1998; Ribaudo et al. 2001; Ribaudo 2003; Peterson and Boisvert 2004; Poe et al. 2004; Millock and Salanie 2005). According to the US EPA (1998), agriculture impacts 48% of impaired rivers and 41% of impaired lakes. These water quality problems have persisted despite billions of dollars spent on voluntary conservation cost-share programs by the federal government over the last two decad...
Journal of Environmental Management, 2018
Nutrients in drainage waters from the Upper Mississippi River Basin states have been a well-documented contributor to the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone for decades, and in response, twelve states have developed strategies to address this issue, with Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois performing rigorous science assessments which estimated nitrogen and phosphorus reduction effectiveness for numerous agricultural non-point source conservation practices. The practices identified in these strategies were compared to identify areas of consensus and discord on nutrient load reduction potentials. Additionally, each practice was assessed for (1) the suitability to stack or be layered with other practices (stackability), (2) the ability to track implementation within a state or regionally (trackability), and (3) the level of production system change required to implement the practice. Overall, there was general consensus among the state strategies in the nutrient load reduction effectiveness of most practices with the exception of cover crops (10%-31% nitrogen reduction) and bioreactors (13%-43% nitrogen reduction). The most effective water quality-improvement practices (i.e., land-use change practices) required relatively more production system changes to agronomic management and were the most trackable (scores: 5, 1-5 scale), although they were also less stackable with other practices (scores: 1 to 1.8; 1-5 scale) and were the least cost effective on a unit area basis (generally 15to15 to 15to964 per ha). The most cost effective practices tended to be highly stackable (e.g., nitrogen management: (−)$49 per ha and stackability of 4.7), which indicated that stacking a variety of practices may be the most cost effective use of conservation dollars. The practices that were most difficult to track had relatively lower nitrogen loss reduction effectiveness, but these practices were less costly to implement and required relatively less production system change to agronomic management, two factors of importance to many producers.
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 2021
Legacy nutrients stored in agricultural soils are a substantial component of riverine nutrient discharge contributing to the eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems. These nutrient loads can persist and delay water quality initiatives, for example, those of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement which seek to reduce phosphorus (P) loads entering the Western Lake Erie Basin. In this watershed, approximately 5% of fields have P concentrations 2.5-fold greater than the maximum agronomic recommendations for corn and soybeans. Fields with these elevated-P concentrations (>100 mg P kg−1 soil) act as a source of legacy-P and discharge greater P loads. Implementing best management practices to treat runoff from these fields is desirable but finding them has been a challenge as soil test data are proprietary information creating an asymmetric information barrier. To overcome this barrier, we formed a public-private partnership that included agricultural retailers who conduct soil testing fo...