The Des Moines Register: Editorial: To clean up our water, go ‘nuts’ like this Iowa farmer
The Register’s editorial Published 7:30 a.m. CT June 30, 2017
Shifting from two-crop cycle can produce profits and environmental benefits
(Photo: Special to the Register)
Yet some Iowans have called him “nuts” for sowing grass where he could plant more corn, he told the Register.
Watkins has broken out of the two-crop cycle in which so many farmers are caught. He grows corn but also oats, alfalfa and cover crops. He grazes his cattle on pastureland, and about 400 acres of his land have been restored to prairie or set aside for ponds and protection of wildlife and streams. And he’s seen better financial returns as a result, he said, even if it comes at the cost of huge corn yields.
“My job as farmer is not to produce; my job is to care for the land. And when I do this properly, this provides for all of us,” Watkins, 48, told an audience this month at the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Capitol Hill Ocean Week in Washington, D.C.
Why is an Iowa farmer talking to marine scientists about his farming practices?
Because they know what Watkins does in the Nodaway River valley affects places like the Gulf of Mexico. The “dead zone” — a region of oxygen-depleted water that harms shrimp and other sea life — is expected to be more than 50 percent larger than average this summer, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This spring’s heavy rains washed excess fertilizer from Midwestern fields down the Mississippi River into the gulf.
Politicians and ag leaders claim that Iowa farmers are making progress in addressing water pollution, but too much evidence shows it’s shamefully inadequate. We must change the incentives that create environmental problems — and also leave farmers with high costs for chemicals and low prices for grain.
The good news is there are solutions, as Watkins’ experience suggests. A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, backed by research from Iowa State University, suggests that shifting away from a two-crop system can help soil and water and farmers’ profitability.
The ISU research compared the typical two-year, corn-soybean rotation to three- and four-year rotations that included oats, red clover, alfalfa or other crops. The longer rotations actually increased corn and soybean yields while leading to staggering reductions in herbicide runoff (81 to 96 percent) and nitrogen fertilizer application rates (43 to 57 percent).
The Union of Concerned Scientists’ analysis looked at adopting the diverse rotations without tillage in the 25 Iowa counties with the most erodible soils. The result would reduce soil erosion by 91 percent compared with tilled corn-soybeans and save taxpayers $196 million to $198 million per year in surface water cleanup costs.
Such crop rotations could eventually be adopted on 20 percent to 40 percent of all Iowa farmland without upsetting grain markets, the analysis showed.
Plenty of barriers stand in the way, however, including financial and technical constraints and crop insurance restrictions.
Federal farm policy got us into the two-crop system, and it can help get us out. The next farm bill can include more incentives for farmers to try diverse cropping — such as additional funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and Farm Service Agency loans. The legislation can support more research and technical assistance to help farmers adopt new practices. The proposed U.S. Department of Agriculture budget threatens programs that help beginning farmers — who may be more willing to try new ways of farming — and that provide incentives to transition to new farming methods.
“I don’t know that I need to be subsidized for doing the right thing. I just want us to stop subsidizing the wrong things,” Watkins said.
Watkins is a Republican but sees Iowa leaders’ priorities askew. The state provided $109 million in incentives for a new fertilizer plant in southeast Iowa, but the Legislature once again failed to approve a 3/8-cent sales tax increase in the Iowa Natural Resources and Outdoors Trust Fund, which would provide incentives for landowners to adopt conservation practices. “There’s something really wrong with us,” he said.
He stresses that he’s not pointing the finger at other farmers. What he does on highly erodible land in southwest Iowa may not work for tile-drained fields in flat, north-central Iowa. His message: “Make the best use of the land you have.”
And to all of us concerned about our soil and water, he repeats his grandmother’s 4-H motto: “Make our best better.”