Study Finds Working Farmland Does Not Have to be Idled to Produce Major Environmental, Economic Benefits
State residents are willing to pay $201 annually for such benefits

These results have major implications for farm policy, said George Boody, Executive Director of the Land Stewardship Project, which coordinated the study. This week, the U.S. Senate is discussing key provisions of the next farm bill.

"Farming has a lot of untapped potential to produce various food and non-food benefits for society," said Boody. "That's an important message at a time when Congress is debating the future of farm policy that up until now has focused almost exclusively on producing mountains of raw material. Such a flawed policy assumes the only way to protect land in farm country is to idle it."

The Multiple Benefits of Agriculture analysis was conducted over a two-year period in southeast Minnesota's Wells Creek watershed, and a sub-watershed of the Chippewa River, in western Minnesota. Biologists, economists and rural sociologists from the University of Minnesota, Minnesota State University-Mankato, Bemidji State University and Iowa State University conducted the study. The Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy also participated in the analysis.

Scientists and local watershed residents developed four land use scenarios to predict how various farming practices could affect the environmental and economic health of the study areas. The "what if" scenarios ranged from allowing intensive cultivation of corn and soybeans to continue, to establishing diversified land management systems that include small grains, grasses and even wetlands as part of working farms. Researchers then used modeling to gauge how water quality, soil erosion rates, wildlife habitat, greenhouse gas emissions, and local economic/social systems would be affected by each scenario.

Some of the predicted results were dramatic. For example:

• Switching from intensive tillage that leaves the soil clean and black to a system that protects the field by allowing dead plant material to sit on top of the soil cut erosion by as much as 31 percent. Farming systems that rely on perennial plant systems, such as rotational grazing of cattle, can cut erosion by as much as 80 percent.

• The annual downstream costs of sedimentation could be cut as much as 84 percent by switching to a more diverse farming system that includes soil-saving tillage, crop rotations that consist of more than corn and soybeans, perennial plants and expanded wetland habitat.

• Greenhouse gas emissions, in carbon equivalent, could be reduced as much as 36 percent in the Chippewa River watershed study area if more perennial plant cover was established.

• Based on 2000 market prices, hay and other perennial plant enterprises are more profitable in the study areas than corn and soybeans.

• A statewide public opinion poll found that Minnesota citizens on average are willing to pay an additional $201 per household annually for specific and substantial benefits that are produced by diversified land use and farming systems.

Despite the benefits diversity can produce, current federal farm policy is a major barrier to producing anything other than corn and soybeans in the watersheds, said Mark Schultz, Policy Program Director for the Land Stewardship Project. Currently, farmers are penalized financially for diversifying into hay, grass or anything else not considered a program crop such as corn or soybeans. That's a major disincentive for farmers hoping to develop other food production enterprises, said Schultz.

But the U.S. Senate is currently debating major changes in federal farm policy. Some of the options being considered, such as Iowa Senator Tom Harkin's Conservation Security Act, would reward farmers for diversified production systems.

"Right now federal farm policy produces cheap feed for factory farms, shuttered main streets and a host of environmental problems. That's a poor use of tax money," said Schultz. "This study shows when given the right incentives farmers can provide the public a very positive return on their dollar, and taxpayers have said they want to pay for those benefits."

The Multiple Benefits of Agriculture analysis makes several policy recommendations, including:

• Pay farmers for public environmental and social benefits produced on their farms, including those resulting from ongoing and newly adopted practices and farming systems.

• Provide incentives to farmers through programs that graduate payments according to increasing levels of stewardship on working lands.

• Redirect funding for research, education, extension and conservation technical assistance to more effectively promote diversified farming and marketing systems.

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Project information, including supplemental maps and data, can be found on LSP's Multiple Benefits of Agriculture page.

For information on purchasing a paper copy of the 52-page report, go to the Resources section or call 651-653-0618.