Conservation Trends in Agriculture Reflect Policy, Technology, and Other Factors

I am a member of both the Dunklin and Pemiscot County Soil and Water Conservation Districts. This program allows us to put conservation practices on the ground. The amount of money coming into both Dunklin and Pemiscot Counties is important to the agricultural community. While the Farm bill has changed, more emphasis is placed on conservation practices.

As an extension specialist involved in the agriculture and environment system, this is really a good fit for me. Although my title has changed, this is still important to me.

Production choices can impact the health of the environment by affecting soil erosion, nutrient pollution, and water availability and quality. In turn, agricultural productivity is dependent upon the health of the resource base, which is broadly defined to include soil, water, and air quality, as well as related factors such as pollinator health and climate. 

While the largest single conservation program (in terms of budget) is the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which provides funding for the retirement of environmentally sensitive land, the largest share of conservation funding goes toward incentivizing conservation practices on lands that remain in production—or “working lands.” The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is one such program, which provides financial assistance to farmers who adopt or install conservation practices on land in agricultural production. The top five crop management practices (in terms of expenditures) awarded support through EQIP have been conservation crop rotation, cover crops, nutrient management, terraces, and conservation tillage (residue management).

As farmers have adopted soil health and conservation practices like conservation tillage, they have helped reduce soil erosion on the Nation’s working lands. Between 1982 and 2012, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s National Resources Inventory (NRI) shows erosion on cultivated cropland (due to water and wind) declined by 45 percent, from 2.9 billion tons in 1982 to 1.6 billion tons in 2012. Though part of this decline is due to less land being cropped over time, a large portion is due to changes in farm management practices.

The development of precision agriculture technologies has also altered the farm management decisions available to farmers, and the environmental implications of those decisions. For example, variable-rate technologies (VRT) use localized field crop condition information to customize the application of inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. VRT allows farmers to manage their inputs foot by foot, rather than field by field, and to use only prescribed amounts of inputs, which lowers producer’s costs and reduces the off-field impacts of those inputs. By 2016, 40 percent of planted corn acreage was managed using VRT

We have certainly come a long way with our conservation practices. Missouri has one of the better records in the U.S. in reducing soil erosion losses.