| Volume I, Number 5 | November 1996 |
Editor's note: This issue does not include a farmer profile. Instead, we sent our readers a copy of the Ontario Profile, which highlights the work of five Ontario farmers. The Profile is not available except as a traditional paper document. If you would like a copy, please call, write or e-mail us at The Minnesota Project and we will send one to you while supplies last.
This past winter, the staff of the Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Program (ESAP) of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) involved farmers across the state in the dialogue on whole farm planning. Staff members feel that whole farm planning can only be successful if it taps into the creative potential of each farmer. There will be no single recipe; instead, agencies such as MDA need to respect the fact that farmers know their capabilities and interests and that, in the end, farmers must be the ones doing the planning. Developing whole farm planning tools will require the inclusion of farmer input from the outset.
ESAP held a series of seven regional forums in the winter and spring of 1996. A diversity of farming philosophy and farm enterprise were represented at the forums. The farm families were asked to respond to the following very personal questions:
The participating farmers generally found it very stimulating to visit this important but not often talked-about part of their lives. The following trends emerged from these discussions that apply directly to the whole farm planning debate.
When asked about their ideal farm, farmers shared a desire for more manageable debt and reduced stress so they could enjoy farming more. They crave respect from the community, to be seen as professionals who are not raping the land. There is a desire to engage in land stewardship practices (soil building, complex rotations) but the ability and desire to do so is absolutely linked to their ability to pass on the farm.
The farmers generally feel that their farm vision is related to their planning process, but that they need to work to clarify their long-range goals. They feel isolated and desire to do more networking with other farmers. A sense of powerlessness hinders realization of their vision. They want to be more proactive with respect to the marketplace and profitability.
Environmental stewardship was not mentioned once during the discussion about current comprehensive planning practices. However, there was extensive discussion of stewardship when the farmers were asked where they want their farms to go. This sense of stewardship appears inseparable from the ability to pass on the farm and the ability to secure stable, long-term profitability.
The results of these forums raise several important questions for the whole farm planning debate:
This coming winter, ESAP staff members hope to continue working with farmers in two areas in the state to continue the explorations begun in the farmer forums. These groups will work to design a goal setting process, and to discuss what motivates farmers to do more comprehensive farm planning.
—adapted from Greenbook `96, the annual report of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Energy and Sustainable Agriculture Program.
To farm organically means establishing rotations, learning careful timing to coordinate with biological processes, and setting up adequate marketing. This requires a lot of planning, and qualifying for organic certĩcation adds another level. How does this process compare with other approaches to whole farm planning?
The decision to manage a farm using organic methods and to apply for certĩcation by a private or state agency has been purely voluntary. If and when proposed national organic legislation goes into effect, this will no longer be true. To use the label "organic," the national legislation requires certĩcation by a USDA-accredited agency, unless the farm sells less than $5000 worth of produce a year. Even with this element of coercion, however, it will still be the farmer's choice to certify.
The organic farm plan needed for certĩcation is site-specĩc and designed by the farmer. Some certĩcation programs are able to offer technical assistance with this planning, others are not. There are a few private consultants who offer advisory services to organic farmers, especially in California. In 1996, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York (NOFA-NY) began a mentoring program, pairing new farmers with experienced farmers who helped them design and execute their farm plan.
Organic farm planning has several goals: to design an ecologically sound management system; to establish an on-going process of re-evaluating farm practices, with the purpose of constantly improving soil quality and animal health; and to provide the certifying agent with a guarantee that the production process meets publicly agreed-upon organic standards. Conceived of as a way to assure consumers that they are getting what they pay for, certĩcation has served as a useful marketing tool. At the same time, certĩcation programs like NOFA's were designed to help farmers constantly improve their methods. Annual recertĩcation and inspection enable both the farmer and the certĩer to monitor progress towards the farmer's goals. The board that grants certĩcation provides a form of technical and peer review of the farm plan.
From the start, there has been a tension between the crop improvement and purely regulatory aspects of certĩcation. The entrance of government onto the organic scene threatens to tip the scales towards regulation.
While organic standards are public documents, each farm's certĩcation documents are coñdential. Some certĩcation programs make parts of the application available to the public upon request and with the farmer's permission. For example, NOFA-NY requires a "Spray Record/Applied Amendments" form, which a customer may ask to review.
Central to organic farming is the management of soil fertility. If there is an organic orthodoxy, it is that healthy soils produce healthy crops, animals and people. The progress towards living, balanced soil is assessed through periodic soil tests, visual observations and the annual evaluation process. Organic systems encourage the development of on-farm resources and nutrient cycling. Crop rotations and integrated pest and disease management are built into organic farm plans. Pesticides are used only as a last resort. Intensive management of weeds through rotations, cover cropping, timely cultivations, mowing and mulching are essential, or life without herbicides can be misery.
Farms which convert to organic management often begin by substituting approved organic materials for chemicals. This substitution may meet the minimum requirements for certĩcation and some farms never get beyond this. Many farmers, however, once they convert to organic methods for whatever reason, develop a philosophical commitment to organic management which leads them to redesign their farming system to maximize the integration of on-farm resources, reduce dependence on off-farm inputs, increase biodiversity and work as closely as possible with natural forces. Organic publications like NOFA's "The Natural Farmer," regularly carry articles stressing the value of ecological management and discussing what this means concretely for the farmer and the environment.
While organic certĩcation programs do not inspect for compliance with government environmental regulations or safety standards, the emphasis on careful soil management tends to reduce erosion. The avoidance of synthetic chemicals in organic farming reduces the risk of chemical contamination of food, air, soil and water. NOFA inspectors give a close look at equipment for oil or fuel leaks. A weakness of organic certĩcation is its failure to require a rigorous assessment of the farmstead for outbuilding runoff, manure storage, septic systems, wellhead protection and similar problems. In Europe, where there is a more rapid rate of conversion to organic farming, a serious research initiative is underway to assess possible contamination of water resources from the use of compost, manures, and legume cover crops.
The organic certĩcation process does not encompass quality of life issues. Such topics as satisfaction, spiritual values and stress management are not included in organic farm plans. Neither is developing a sustainable relationship with nearby consumers. These do provide a major part of programming at organic conferences and are widely discussed in the organic press.
Many organic farmers feel they are part of a movement for ecological and social justice and a sustainable way of life. The private certĩcation programs in the Northeast subscribe to a set of principles, based on the principles of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM), not all of which are "certĩable or quantĩable." The principles include these broader issues:
IFOAM is currently discussing how to include the just treatment of labor in certĩcation standards, with passionate voices raised on all sides.
In the Northeast, and I cannot claim that this is true for other parts of the country or the world, there is a sense of community among organic farmers which affects the quality of our planning for each individual farm. Lacking government or university support, we have learned from one another. As Mike Kane writes, "In my twenty years of trying to learn to be a farmer, the vast majority of what I have learned has come from the generosity of other farmers. Especially among organic farmers, the free sharing, the good will, the genuine concern -- in short, the cultural process -- has been not only a godsend, but an inspiration." ("Creating Culture," Organic Farms, Folks and Foods, the newsletter of NOFA-NY, Harvest 1996.)
A valiant effort has been made to preserve the special qualities of organic farming within the USDA National Organic Program. But it is hard to be anything but skeptical of the likelihood that spiritual and ecological sensitivities will survive the forces of bureaucratic penetration. It will also be dif̃cult for a national program to make continual changes in the way most certĩcation programs do as we learn more and as new products and research emerge. The limitations of the annual certĩcation process are becoming more apparent, though it does prod organic farmers to keep on ̃ne-tuning our farm plans.
To keep on growing as farmers and to approach our goal of a regional, sustainable food system, we need to use certĩcation as one of our planning tools, value it for its worth, and go beyond it. There is no regulation that will prevent us from making our planning broader and deeper than the statute requires. Many of us would be better managers if we adopted the rigorous decision-testing process of Holistic Resource Management® (HRM) and learned to examine our technical and marketing choices in the light of our often-unstated personal goals. Whether or not we want to make all of our assumptions as explicit as HRM trains you to do is a matter of personal style. The challenge is to ̃gure out how to design our farms and build our community so as to nourish our growth as human beings and our satisfaction with our lives.
—Elizabeth Henderson, Rose Valley Farm Elizabeth Henderson is an organic farmer and a member of the New York working group of the Great Lakes Basin Farm Planning Network. We invited her to share her experiences with farm planning; we invite any other farmers to share theirs..
The Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) recently proposed rules for implementing the new Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Created by the 1996 farm bill, EQIP will be America's premier cost-share program helping farmers adopt conservation practices. Congress authorized 1.3 billion dollars over the seven-year period of the program. Total benefits to farmers and the environment over this period are valued at well over five billion dollars.
Each participating farmer will develop a conservation plan which becomes part of their EQIP contract. Ultimately some 15,000 farmers will have EQIP plans covering 37 million acres.
Of great interest to readers of The Whole Farm Planner is just what those conservation plans will be like. The proposed rules help answer that question. While an EQIP plan is not necessarily a whole farm plan in the fullest sense, it comes closer than any national program to date.
Most EQIP funding will be targeted to priority watersheds or areas of special environmental sensitivity that have significant soil, water, or related natural resource concerns. NRCS will use a partnership process with states, other federal agencies, and local work groups providing advice to help them select priority areas. Once the money is apportioned, then farmers in those areas will be encouraged to participate. A small amount of funds will be made available outside funded priority areas.
When a farmer decides to apply for EQIP assistance, he or she will make an application to the local Farm Service Agency office. The farmer will then developed a conservation plan with the help of the local conservation district, NRCS staff, or other public and private natural resource professionals. The plan must use conservation practices identified in the local NRCS field office technical guide for the natural resource concerns in that priority area. The conservation plan must be acceptable to NRCS and be approved by the local conservation district.
All approved conservation plans then compete within their priority area for available money. NRCS will rank the plans according to the amount of environmental benefits per dollar expended. The Farm Service Agency county committee will approve funding for the highest priority applications in a particular priority area, and five- to ten-year contracts with farmers will be signed.
The proposed rules define a conservation plan as "a record of a participant's decisions, and supporting information, for treatment of a unit of land or water, and includes the schedule of operations, activities, and estimated expenditures needed to solve identified natural resource problems."
The proposed rules on the content of conservation plans closely follow the original Senate language endorsed by the Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. Following is the complete language: "Sec. 1466.6 Conservation plan. (e) The conservation plan, or supporting documentation, for the unit of concern shall include:
No, an EQIP conservation plan is not necessarily a whole farm plan. But it certainly comes closer than past programs, and farmers can voluntarily make it more so.
One concern with the proposed rules voiced by the Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture is that they fail to define the size of "large" animal waste management facilities, which are ineligible for EQIP funding. Instead, each state conservationist is to decide what is "too large." Since half of EQIP money is targeted to livestock farms, the question of who is eligible and how money will be distributed is of great concern. NRCS is especially seeking comments on this part of the proposal, and may change the rule later. You may access the proposed rules and submit comments via Internet at http://astro.itc.nrcs.usda.gov:6500.
—Loni Kemp
One of a farmer's many challenges is to manage nutrients effectively in order to assure optimal levels for crop and animal production, while not allowing excess amounts to be wasted or to enter the environment. The effects of excess nutrients -- such as surface water eutrophication and soil acidification -- create problems for individual farmers as well as for society as a whole. Recognizing this challenge, farmers both in the U.S. and in other countries have been leading the way in improving nutrient management and preventing loss of nutrients to the environment.
With much of its land at or below sea level, the Netherlands is one of the world's most environmentally sensitive nations. Both ground and surface water supplies have been highly degraded by the runoff and leaching from the country's intensive agricultural production. Dutch policymakers have enacted a number of measures to combat the increasing problems, including regulations on livestock herd sizes, strict manure management laws and bans on certain chemicals.
In the face of such severe problems, a group of farmers and researchers came together in the 1980s to explore more effective and efficient on-farm nutrient management strategies. Working with the Center for Agriculture and the Environment (CLM), a non-governmental organization, this group developed an innovative approach to nutrient management called a `yardstick.' The nutrient management yardstick is now one in a series of farm management tools available through CLM that have been designed to aid farmers in assessing and reducing adverse environmental impacts. The other yardsticks apply to pesticide and energy use, irrigation planning and on-farm biodiversity promotion.
The nutrient management yardstick consists of a set of simple worksheets farmers use to track nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) brought onto their farms in the form of feed, purchased fertilizer, nitrogen-fixing crops, livestock and so on. At the end of the year, they determine the quantity of nutrients removed from the farm in the form of marketed crops, livestock, milk, etc. The farmer then subtracts outputs from inputs for N, P and K to get the `surplus' or loss to the environment. Ideally, the amount of nutrients removed from the farm should equal those brought onto the farm, but some loss to the environment is unavoidable. The challenge to the farmer is to reduce this nutrient loss score without adversely affecting production.
This nutrient management workbook provides farmers a means to assess the efficiency of their nutrient usage, in addition to seeing how their current farming practices may be harming the environment. Once a baseline nutrient loss level is determined, farmers can make rational decisions about specific steps to decrease it. The targeted reduction, and the steps taken to achieve that reduction, are left up to the individual farmer. Study groups, organized and led by farmers, have been central to the Dutch yardstick project. Within the study groups, farmers share experiences and learn from each other techniques for reducing nutrient loss.
Farmers use the yardstick on a yearly basis to measure their progress in reducing nutrient loss over time. During the six years since its introduction in the Netherlands, this system of nutrient bookkeeping has achieved remarkable results. Dutch farmers have averaged a ten percent reduction in surplus nutrient scores each year, with some achieving reductions as high as seventy percent. This progress was accelerated when CLM began to explore market opportunities for rewarding farmers who achieve specific percentage reductions in nutrients lost to the environment.
The yardstick has also helped Dutch farmers to cut costs by identifying unnecessary inputs. The farmers praise the system for its simplicity and for the independence it gives them in making nutrient management decisions. The nutrient management yardstick is now in widespread use by Dutch farmers and is becoming part of Dutch national farm policy. During the next year, CLM will adapt this tool for use in other European countries.
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) in Minneapolis began working with CLM in 1995 to adapt the nutrient management yardstick for use in North America. Early in 1996, IATP organized a small group of farmers from around the U.S. to travel to the Netherlands and meet with the Dutch farmers and researchers who developed the yardstick. The visiting farmers also toured a number of farms on which the yardstick is being used, and learned about the incentives and results-rewarding schemes that are helping to promote reductions in nutrients lost to the environment.
IATP subsequently established a nutrient yardstick pilot project with demonstration farms in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and New York. Once the yardstick has been thoroughly evaluated, IATP plans to launch demonstration projects in other major farm states while making the yardstick tool widely available. In addition, we will soon begin experimenting with yardsticks for assessing pesticide impacts, bio-diversity promotion and on-farm water storage.
There will be opportunities to learn more about the yardsticks at the national Farmer-Led Watershed Initiatives conference on February 6-7, 1997 in Mankato, Minnesota, as well as during the 1997 Netherlands Farm Tour, organized by IATP and taking place March 3-9, 1997.
For more information about the yardstick project, the Farmer-Led Watershed Initiatives conference, or the 1997 Netherlands Farm Tour, contact Jim Kleinschmit at IATP, 1313 Fifth St. SE, Suite 303, Minneapolis MN 55414, 612-379-5980, fax 379-5982, email: water@mtn.org
—Emily Green & Jim Kleinschmit Emily Green is program director and Jim Kleinschmit is a program associate of IATP's Watershed Protection Program.
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