Conservation Agriculture Creates a “Cascade of Cost Savings” for Farmers – EDF Report

If growers are willing to take a patient approach in determining which conversation practices are right for their operation, they could realize “a cascade of cost savings throughout their budgets” as well as improved soil health and reduced runoff, reads the report from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released today. Even if most producers agree that conservation and sustainable farming practices are important, they as well need to ensure that their farming operations remain profitable.

With a limited number of growing seasons throughout a producer’s lifetime, taking risks on new farming methodologies without knowing whether they’ll hit the minimum margins they need to keep the business afloat each year, can be too much risk for even the most progressive producer to stomach. These are very savvy producers and it intrigued me that they didn’t have an adequate answer to that question already.” Scott Henry of Iowa, Justin Knopf of Kansas, and Josh Yoder of Ohio threw open its doors their books and shared comprehensive farm-level data.

As Monast notes, it can be quite difficult to convince a grower to hand over unfettered access to his or her records. The report in addition included a comparative analysis of 10 additional holdings. EDF and AgKnowledge in addition saw a gap between research on conservation practices and incentivizing makers like Henry, Knopf. Yoder to take the time, effort, and financial risk to implement them as part of their operations.

Instead, producers are required to bear every cost associated with adopting a conservation practice. Related parties who stand to benefit from conservation are failing to support farmers in this endeavor, added Monast. A Whole-Farm Approach EDF and AgKnowledge took a whole-farm approach to quantifying the impact of conservation practices.

It was those connections that permitted them to see where the earnings was being realized.” One of the case research producers was initially quite skeptical about cover harvests. But after five years of implementing the practice, he now sees it as having a permanent place in his operation without having to sacrifice returns.

Another farmer in the trio originally had issues making cover cropping a financially plausible part of his operation, but eventually made the right modifications to see the dollars needed to keep it going. “These are case studies of farmers who successfully adopted these practices and it really shows farmers how they figured it out and how they fit them into a profitable farming enterprise,” adds Monast. Conservation Advice for Farmers EDF is hopeful that these results and additional studies in the same vein will encourage the farm financial system to start taking conservation practices into account.

More importantly, they hope that the report, which involves three very common and ubiquitous farming operations, will show other operators that adopting these basic practices is worth the fiscal and practical costs of implementation. As Monast notes, the practices are all fairly standard and have been part of the conservation dialogue for many years.

Her best advice to producers curious about conservation is to try a practice out on a portion of the holding and see how it reacts, paying attention to related areas where the conservation practice may have yielded more dollars in addition to better soil, water quality, and other outcomes. With the report’s optimistic findings, Monast and EDF are hoping to work next on connecting the dots between producers and corporations when it comes to the value of conservation practices.

This includes lenders, insurers, farmland backers, and other groups who have a financial interest in conservation.