It may not need saying, but we’ll say it anyway:
“Thriving farms and ranches are the backbone of thriving communities. When farms and ranches are profitable, resilient, and supported—when they offer fulfilling lives to the families who run them—their success ripples outward.”
The ripples enable food companies to be more resilient as their ingredient supply chains become more reliable. Consumers become more resilient as food security increases. The environment becomes more resilient and able to continue producing clean water through healthy, biodiverse ecosystems. That’s what the Thriving Farms and Ranches Initiative at American Farmland Trust reminds us: that we are all better off when farms are resilient and able to sustain a farm family long into the future.
One pathway to achieving thriving farms and ranches is through healthy, more resilient soil. Soil that sustains farms is:
Rich in biodiversity above ground (diverse crop rotation) and below ground (diverse microbial populations)
Covered with crop residue to withstand the scouring forces of harsh rainstorms or to retain life-sustaining moisture during drought
Planted with cover crops that provide habitat and nutrition for the microbes over winter
Managed with limited disturbance to maintain good soil structure and an effective cycle of nutrients and water
But adopting regenerative soil health conservation practices like crop rotation, reduced or no tillage, cover crops, and nutrient management can present barriers like high upfront costs, equipment and seed bottlenecks, and many new management techniques to learn, refine, and master. One huge barrier is that farmers and their ag advisors may not know what the economic costs and potential benefits are of adopting these soil health regenerative farming practices.
To learn more about AFT’s soil health work and engage with the many free resources available to farmers and ranchers, join us on June 11 for a free webinar: Regenerative Practices: New Economic Tools in the Crop Resilience Tool Box.
A diverse team of soil scientists and economists at AFT, and others in the regenerative agriculture community, have built up a body of economic evidence that soil health practices can increase productivity, profitability, and resilience. With support from AFT’s new Thriving Farms and Ranches Initiative, we featured these resources and tools at the Sustainable Agriculture Summit in Anaheim, CA last November with a session titled: “Talking Dollars and Dirt: Using Economic Tools to Support Soil Health.”
A few highlights of the findings and a new tool we shared, include:
22 of 23 row crop farmers in 12 states who adopted soil health practices reported an increase in their net income of $2 to $209 per acre per year (See “soil health successful” farmer case studies for more)
Reducing tillage passes offers large and reliable production cost benefits, and long-term use of no-till and cover crops can offer a modest improvement in yields for corn, soybeans, and wheat (See short guides to the literature on soil health economics)
A predictive modeling tool is ready for use to predict 10-year economic outcomes for 10 commodity crops (barley, corn, cotton, tobacco, sorghum, oat, peanut, sugar beet, soybean, and/or wheat) and allows users to run quick “what if” scenarios to estimate the potential net income change from adopting a variety of soil health practices under “regular” and drought conditions
The workshop’s positive reception was palpable!
First, the conference badge checkers had to turn dozens of people away at the door to adhere to fire safety policies.
Second, the 60-person audience that did get in said it was “very useful,” and 80% were “very likely” or “likely” to use the resources we shared in their future work on conservation education, outreach, technical assistance, etc.
Third, several people in the audience told us, during Q&A, that these findings, resources, and tools will help the many stakeholders in the regenerative agriculture community. They matter not only for farmers, but they also matter for bankers, non-operating landowners, and many others that are impacted by farm profitability and the health of the broader agricultural economy.
For example:
Ag lenders and crop insurance providers might tailor their offerings to reflect the reality from the economic literature that it can take three to five years of soil health practice adoption to see profitability and increased resilience
Farmland management companies who want their farmer tenants to be resilient to increasingly erratic weather conditions and continue being a good investment can share the resources and tools and support their journey to better soil health
Commodity trade associations representing the 10 commodity crops who care about their members' economic viability and drought resilience can encourage use of the Predictive Soil Health Economic Calculator (P-SHEC) tool by members
Corporations who source the 10 commodity crops, are concerned about supply chain disruptions, and trying to achieve their sustainability goals can help invest in the next version of the P-SHEC tool that will offer estimation of resilience under two more extreme weather conditions–excess precipitation and extreme temperature variations, not just drought conditions
So, we’re reaching out widely now to make sure you know about these resources and to identify opportunities to collaborate given we all share the same goal of supporting farms and ranches to not only survive but also thrive.
Join us and spread the word about our upcoming free webinar on June 11 at 1 pm Eastern: “Regenerative Practices: New Economic Tools in the Crop Resilience Tool Box”.
.jpg)
