Latest / The Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Podcast / Episode 11 | Economics of Conservation
Transcript
- Episode 11 | Economics of Conservation 00:00:06:18 - 00:00:36:14 Todd Gleason This is the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast, episode 11 The Economics of Conservation: an inside look at two programs making waves in Illinois's water quality. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. Steve Stierwalt is a Champaign County Illinois farmer and currently serves as the chairman of the Association of Illinois Soil and Water Conservation Districts. He's also been instrumental in the development of a program called STAR. 00:00:36:16 - 00:00:42:00 Todd Gleason I asked him just exactly what that is and how it has to deal with water quality. 00:00:42:03 - 00:01:04:28 Steve Stierwalt STAR stands for Saving Tomorrows Agricultural Resources. And I could give you an hour definition of STAR, but I'll give you the elevator. Elevator speech on that, and STAR really is an evaluation, verification and recognition program. That is is based on farmers practices. 00:01:05:01 - 00:01:27:23 Steve Stierwalt So, we farmers, the only way we can really, make a contribution, shall we say, to conservation, is the practices that we use. And so, STAR was developed to give us a way to evaluate our practices that we use, as it compares to other farmers. And as it compares to the resource concern that we're trying to evaluate against. 00:01:27:26 - 00:01:35:01 Todd Gleason It originated here in Champaign County with the Soil and Water Conservation District. However, it spread to several more counties. Is that right? 00:01:35:05 - 00:01:56:10 Steve Stierwalt That's correct. We just started it a year ago, and we're basically wanting to keep it, relatively small so that we could kind of get the bugs worked out of it. But, we, instead of it just being Champaign County was evidently getting at least one field form from 15 counties in our first year because people were interested. 00:01:56:10 - 00:02:22:09 Steve Stierwalt They wanted to know. They wanted to know. Some people just want to kind of evaluate their own process. How are we doing compared to everybody else? So right now we've got 15 licensees, districts for soil water districts and some farm bureaus who have licensed you the, the, the STAR Field form is free, but we have a license agreement that these other organizations sign. 00:02:22:12 - 00:02:36:27 Steve Stierwalt It was we had advice early on to keep the integrity of the program. Somebody needs to keep a hold of it so it doesn't become, you know, everybody gets five stars. And so that there we have 15 licenses right now. We've got a half dozen more that are in the process. 00:02:36:28 - 00:02:38:10 Todd Gleason So there must be a future for this. 00:02:38:11 - 00:02:41:25 Todd Gleason How might STAR be utilized in that future by the industry? 00:02:41:26 - 00:03:06:13 Steve Stierwalt Well, our long term goal is, before for us to really make a difference in conservation, we've got to get to the middle adopter farmers and that group of farmers is is they're not against conservation, but they need a reason to to try conservation practices. And so we're hoping through the STAR program that we can actually help industry with their needs. 00:03:06:13 - 00:03:29:02 Steve Stierwalt Also, they have the Walmarts of the world have set sustainability goals. And, we've talked to some of the people who sell the Walmart a year ago and asked them a simple question, you know, do you get, requests for sustainably raised bulk commodities? And you said we get they sell those, we get that agricultural time. We don't know how to do it. 00:03:29:04 - 00:03:43:02 Steve Stierwalt So star may not be the way to do it, but it is a way that industry can help out. It can't, can be involved in the whole supply chain to and help encourage farmers to do things more sustainably. 00:03:43:06 - 00:03:50:28 Todd Gleason On that note, let's bring Laura Gentry into our conversation. She's the director of water quality research at the Illinois Corn Growers Association. 00:03:51:00 - 00:04:05:24 Todd Gleason Laura, STAR is a rating system, but there has to be some kind of science behind that to get to the ratings. And I take it the PCM or Precision Conservation Management is that structure. Can you describe it to me? 00:04:05:27 - 00:04:18:12 Laura Gentry Sure. So precision conservation management is the Illinois Corn Growers Association, the Illinois Corn Marketing Board's response to the Illinois nutrient loss reduction strategy that came out in 2015. 00:04:18:14 - 00:05:09:20 Laura Gentry And that strategy told us what it's going to take to meet US EPA's requirements for a 45% reduction in total nitrogen and total phosphorus losses by 2035. And in Illinois, we address this by setting an interim goal. And that interim goal is a 25% reduction in phosphorus and a 15% reduction in nitrate nitrogen losses by 2025. The way that the science assessment set this up and the research that they did demonstrated that we can't meet that final goal without essentially applying a new conservation practice on every acre of farmland in Illinois, because Illinois is such a large contributor of the nitrogen and phosphorus that makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico, which is what 00:05:09:20 - 00:05:40:28 Laura Gentry the nutrient loss reduction strategy was all about. So PCM is our response to that. It is our first effort and our best effort to help farmers to make good decisions about water quality and other nutrient loss and resource issues. So the program itself is a way to help farmers to reinvest our our checkoff dollars, farmers dollars in a way to maintain our freedom to operate and to address our part of the water quality problem. 00:05:41:00 - 00:05:48:16 Todd Gleason So where in Illinois is PCM? I don't know whether practice is the right word, but where is it in place? 00:05:48:18 - 00:06:04:25 Laura Gentry So the PCM program, it serves 16 counties in Illinois. And we are focused on the central area of Illinois, which is the area that has the largest amount of nutrient loss problems according to the nutrient loss reduction strategy. 00:06:04:27 - 00:06:10:04 Todd Gleason There are a lot of efforts Laura in this from what makes precision conservation management different. 00:06:10:06 - 00:06:33:12 Laura Gentry PCM is the first effort of its kind in the country to look at farm financials as the central focus. Along with these conservation practice adoptions. Right. There are a lot of programs that are out there, but they're usually from associations that or organizations or companies that have a different primary focus. 00:06:33:14 - 00:06:51:28 Laura Gentry And for us, our first priority is to help farmers make the best decisions for themselves, to make financially responsible decisions, because we believe no farmer helps anyone if they're being so green or so conservation minded that they put themselves out of business. 00:06:52:01 - 00:06:57:01 Todd Gleason Can you explain any major findings that we've come across so far? 00:06:57:03 - 00:07:01:05 Laura Gentry That's one of the great things about PCM is it's a big data effort. 00:07:01:06 - 00:07:22:04 Laura Gentry We are collecting a lot of information. We have three years of data now. 2018 will be our fourth year of data, and we've done a preliminary analysis. And it's help us to look at the practices that do serve farmers in a financially responsible way. When we have conservation programs that either don't affect yield or that reduce other inputs, so that farmers aren't losing money. 00:07:22:06 - 00:07:46:11 Laura Gentry And some of our preliminary findings are with tillage. We found that, say for corn production, strip till is a very good financially based decision. It's helping farmers. It doesn't reduce yields and it helps them to incorporate some of their their passes so that in a profitability way and a profitability sense, they're incorporating passes without, having to pay extra money. 00:07:46:12 - 00:08:19:15 Laura Gentry So that's been a good financially based practice. One tillage pass is also a good financially based practice. The more tillage passes beyond one, two, three, four tillage passes for corn production are losing money. We find something very similar in terms of our nitrogen management. We really focus on nitrogen management, tillage and cover crops in PCM. And with nitrogen management, we find that when farmers apply more than 40% of their nitrogen in the fall, number one, they're putting on more nitrogen than farmers who apply it more in season. 00:08:19:22 - 00:08:27:16 Laura Gentry They aren't making higher yields. And those two come together to equal they're less profitable. So we can demonstrate that. 00:08:27:18 - 00:08:36:00 Laura Gentry You can demonstrate it. But can other farmers find that so they can benchmark themselves or see how this works, against their own operations. 00:08:36:05 - 00:08:43:03 Todd Gleason That's a great part of PCM is that it makes these meaningful comparisons for farmers within the program. 00:08:43:06 - 00:09:07:06 Laura Gentry A farmer can compare his own practices. He can compare his conservation analysis and his financial assessment with farmers doing other practices. It's all anonymized, but a farmer using one tillage pass ahead of his corn can compare the way his assessment with farmers who are doing strip tillage or no till for corn. We can tease it down all the way into what region they're in. 00:09:07:06 - 00:09:31:19 Laura Gentry Even so, we can really start to look at differences. What soil productivity ratings. If a farmer wants to look at it in that way, we can give them some really meaningful comparisons for farmers outside of the program. Yes, the answer is yes. In the long term. Within the next year, we will have summaries of PCM farmer data that will help those farmers also to make decisions about their own practices. 00:09:31:23 - 00:09:45:19 Todd Gleason One of the farmers that's been making those kinds of decisions joins us now as well. He's Roger Sy from Newman, Illinois, and serves as the vice chair of the Illinois Corn Marketing Board. Can you tell me a little bit, Roger, about your operation? 00:09:45:20 - 00:09:52:18 Roger Sy Okay. I've been farming now since the early 1970s, and recently I've started to slow down a little bit because of my age. 00:09:52:18 - 00:10:16:15 Roger Sy But, through the years, I've had ground in Douglas and Edgar counties and Vermillion County. Along that time, we've always tried to be conservation minded, in my Vermilion County farms especially, had an area where the glacier came through, so we had to deal with a lot of terraces, waterways and such. So we've always worried a lot about nutrient loss reduction and, work to keep what we've got in the field. 00:10:16:16 - 00:10:22:10 Roger Sy So, so through the years, that's been an important part of our operation, an important part of what we're doing with Illinois corn. 00:10:22:14 - 00:10:38:01 Todd Gleason I want to delve into your time with Illinois Corn just a bit. As the vice chairman of the Illinois Corn Marketing Board in particular, why is it that U.S. farmers decided to start a program like PCM or Precision Conservation Management? 00:10:38:03 - 00:11:03:09 Roger Sy The PCM is just another step along the way for us. Through the years, we've always been very active. We've known this has a lot to do with the bottom line for our constituents and our mission is to help with the economic well-being of the Illinois corn farmer. So through the years, we've had other programs that we work with, such as T for 2000, which, you know, we came pretty close to reaching those numbers we set for ourselves and, and gave us pretty good momentum. 00:11:03:11 - 00:11:22:24 Roger Sy So, we also came up with the Council for Best Management Practices and, you know, that was a conglomeration of seed and fertilizer, chemical industry seed or, commodity organizations. And, that was our main goal was to start to work on cleaning up the water supplies, keeping the nitrogen and phosphorus in the fields where we put them. 00:11:22:24 - 00:11:44:14 Roger Sy And that alone helps with the bottom line on those farms. If you're able to utilize what you put there rather than lose what your inputs are. Then we came up with another program, the right product in the right place at the right time, with the right amounts. So this is just another step along the way, because as we've progressed, there's more and more data out there and it's more and more reliable data. 00:11:44:17 - 00:11:51:19 Roger Sy And this is just another way that we see of moving on up the ladder and making it better for our, our farmers. 00:11:51:21 - 00:11:59:18 Todd Gleason Hey, Steve, one final question for you. Any advice for farmers who are hesitant to adopt conservation practices due to costs? 00:11:59:21 - 00:12:06:06 Steve Stierwalt Costs? Now is a very difficult time for farmers. You know, costs are razor thin. 00:12:06:09 - 00:12:27:25 Steve Stierwalt And so, anytime we as farmers try a new practice, it introduces risk to us. And so we're hesitant to try new practices sometime. What I've been happy to find on my own farm is that as I have introduced these conservation practices, they have actually reduced my costs and have been a good investment. 00:12:27:28 - 00:12:35:20 Todd Gleason Now, if you'd like to learn more about PCM or precision conservation management, you can do that online at Precision conservation.org. 00:12:35:23 - 00:12:57:27 Todd Gleason The Precision Conservation Management Program is a joint effort of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, and the Illinois FBFM, or Farm Business Farm Management Association. I’m university of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason. You've been listening to the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction podcast.