Conserve and Profit

Aug 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Lynn Grooms

The Nature Conservancy provides farmers financial assistance for crop consultant services and risk assurance. In previous years, it also offered financial assistance for soil testing and up to $3,000 for the purchase of no-till or strip-till equipment. However, due to a lack of funding, assistance for soil testing and equipment purchases is currently unavailable.

BMP Challenge
This year, The Nature Conservancy has teamed up with the Natural Resource Conservation Service's (NRCS) Resource Conservation and Development and the BMP Challenge to expand the Risk Protection Program.

The American Farmland Trust, along with support from Agflex, Agren, the IPM Institute and the NRCS, provides the Reduced Tillage BMP Challenge and the Nutrient BMP Challenge. These programs pay participating farmers cash if their yield and income are reduced while testing reduced tillage or nutrient management techniques.

David Legvold, executive director, Cannon River Watershed Partnership, Northfield, MN, has participated in the BMP Challenge program for the last two years. He farms about 700 acres and has a cow/calf operation. A BMP Challenge facilitator in southeastern Minnesota, Legvold says the program's facilitators work closely with participants throughout the process. He conducted a BMP Challenge trial with high and low rates of manure on his farm. In this trial, he applied 1,500 gal. of manure/acre in a strip-till plot and 7,000 gal. of manure/acre on the remainder of the field. The strip-till plot yielded 192 bu./acre (compared to 181 bu./acre for the conventional method) at significantly less cost, so Legvold sent in the profit he earned to support the BMP Challenge program.