Whole Farm Resource Assessment

Valuing All Farming Results

“Conservation Commerce” is one name for a potential system using incremental measurements or indices of resource management farm by farm or field by field. Management indices provide a method to integrate production and natural resource management in a transparent and succinct manner. This whole farm resource management process allows natural resource outcomes to become valued as commodities and potentially formalized into the agricultural economy.

Traditionally, the farmer has been viewed as the conservation customer, in that they go to the conservation office and request a grassed waterway or some other practice to implement on their farm. Costs are identified, contractors hired, waterway installed – end of business deal. Conservation Commerce, on the other hand, views the farmer as the conservation supplier, in that they conduct resource management activities on their farm, determine the outcomes, and essentially market a conservation ‘commodity’ similar to the other products they produce.

Every successful market must have buyers and sellers, supply and demand and other components to make transactions fair and practical. Fortunately, the components of Conservation Commerce also exist as a means to value the management activities of farmers—those actions that are prone to improve our soil, water, and habitat resources.

An example of index-based Rapid Whole Farm Assessment

Indices used in example shown:

Crop Equivalency Ratings (University of Minnesota) is an index that reflect the net economic return per acre of soil when managed for cultivated crops, permanent pasture or forest, whichever provides the highest net return.

BTU Equivalent Multiple – This score represents a method that could be used to determine the energy balance of a particular cropping system contained within the farm operation.

The Soil Conditioning Index (USDA) predicts the consequences of cropping systems and tillage practices on soil organic matter in a field.
www.agresourcestrategies.com/RUSLE2TRWorksheet.doc
fargo.nserl.purdue.edu/rusle2_dataweb/RUSLE2_Index.htm

Soil Tillage Intensity Rating (USDA) is intended to function as a stand-alone rating to evaluate tillage and/or planting systems on parameters other than the traditional ground cover and surface disturbance parameters.
www.agresourcestrategies.com/RUSLE2TRWorksheet.doc
fargo.nserl.purdue.edu/rusle2_dataweb/RUSLE2_Index.htm

Water Quality Score (USDA) is an approach adopted to account for multiple management activities that protect and enhance water quality on the farm.
www.agresourcestrategies.com/WQScore.xls

Minnesota Phosphorus Index (University of Minnesota) is a management tool to estimate the relative risk that phosphorus is being lost from an agricultural field and delivered to a nearby ditch, stream, or lake. It allows the user to evaluate management options that can reduce the risk.
www.mnpi.umn.edu/

MinnFARM (University of Minnesota/ARS) was developed to calculate the annual pollutant loading from a feedlot in Minnesota.
www.manure.umn.edu/applied/open_lots.html

Habitat Suitability Index (USDA) uses multiple checklist spreadsheets to identify what habitat components are in existence. The evaluation will result in a quality rating or habitat suitability index that will consider the type, amount, and distribution of habitat elements required.
www.agresourcestrategies.com/WHESHSI.XLS

Pasture Scoring Sheet
.usda.gov/GLTI/technical/publications/pasture-score-sheet.pdf

Why Use Management Indices?

A quick example: a soil-conditioning index calculates in a field-specific manner the potential erosion rates and carbon sequestration trends that may occur under specific cropping systems. These rates and trends can then have a numerical index placed upon them set in incremental values.

Is it exact? Of course not. Neither is the Consumer Price Index, the Heat Index, or the Wind Chill Factor index. Indices are designed to provide a measurement system to the “immeasurable.” The result is a relative numerical value to describe a trend, a comparison, or movement in how a situation is being effected.

Non-point source pollution and wildlife habitat are not measurable by traditional means, and trying to measure them has probably been the biggest obstacle for real progress in our nation’s conservation delivery system.

As in all commerce, you get what you pay for. In today’s conservation delivery system we get some practices on the land in some places. We do get resource outcomes, but we have not been able to define them exactly or at various levels of scale. By using management indices on a field, the impact on the soil, water, habitat and air resources can be defined for that one field. This information can then be aggregated to the watershed, basin, and national level. We can learn what the soil conditioning index is on the ‘back 40 and in the Mississippi Basin that drains into the Gulf of Mexico.

Agricultural Management Indices

Agricultural management indices use site-specific characteristics such as soil, topography, weather and climate as base information and incorporate individual cropping management components such as crop type, tillage, fertility, fertilizer source, crop rotation, yield, cover, conservation practices, etc.

Unlike point-source pollution, non-point source (NSP) pollution can not be measured due to the landscape scale and the variable nature of weather. Likewise the activities and practices used to reduce NPS pollution can not be precisely quantified. Plus, conservation practices will have different outcomes depending on the specific nature of the land where a practice is applied. Site-specific conservation practices are of key importance in improving our resource base, and a non-point source outcome approach is emerging as a significant companion option to these conservation goals. The combination allows for conservation precision: the right practices, in the right places, at the right scale.

Working beyond Program Limits

The September 2007 Report from the National Association of State Conservation Agencies identified that reversing the trend of the program-driven process back to a resource-driven process would improve the efficiency of the Conservation Delivery Systems.

One way to accomplish this reversal is to separate the resource assessment process from those who deliver the programs. After an agricultural professional completes the resource assessment, conservation professionals can deliver the technical and financial assistance available through their program. This allows the conservation professionals to better target their limited resources to now-known areas of concern. When using site-specific methods to evaluate on-farm resources, areas of concern that do not have programs attached to them are still identified. The farmer is now fully aware of the potential issues and these may be addressed through non-governmental means.