Unfinished Business
Confronting the Elephant in the Room
Some agronomists don't have much to say about elephants. But Ruth McCabe isn't one to hold back. "There are big elephants in the room," she often says. "Let's bring them all out."
But McCabe didn't take a conventional route into agronomy, and her position today as conservation agronomist for an ag co-op also is uncommon. Born in Long Beach, California, she grew up outside of the Twin Cities. Two weeks after high school graduation, she joined the Marine Corps. When she returned to Minnesota, she enrolled in college while working fulltime. On a whim, she signed up for a night class in Agronomy 101.
Today McCabe leads a cutting-edge conservation agronomy team at Heartland Cooperative. Her unique role created three years ago is advising farmers how to take advantage of state, federal, private, and carbon funding, and evaluating the pros and cons of each. Her team works with over 400 growers on 500,000 acres.
"Not every conservation practice works on every acre, but for every acre there is a conservation practice that will work," she tells them.
McCabe says telltale signs of erosion manifest themselves in the "snirt" (mixture of snow and dirt) in roadside ditches in early spring, as well as the ephemeral gullies (eroded by runoff) in fields. Iowa loses 5-6 tons of topsoil per farmed acre per year
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Algae blooms, and swimming advisories on beaches are other conservation red flags. https://www.iowadnr.gov/Environmental-Protection/Water-Quality/Water-Monitoring/Beaches
More than 85% of Iowa land is agricultural, and Iowa ranks number one in hog, corn, and egg production. "Iowa also is number one in loading phosphorus, nitrogen, and sediment to the Gulf," McCabe says. "These are the unfortunate byproducts of our agriculture. We're flushing downstream the very things that make us so productive. It's why we need practices to reduce it."
McCabe, who is a 2022 Nuffield International Farming Scholar, is informed by a global perspective. She's traveled to 12 counties in the last 2 years, including Brazil, Western Canada, Australia, Malaysia, and Denmark as part of her research into voluntary stakeholder adoption of conservation agronomy practices. "The entire world struggles with this," she says.
Prior to passage of the Clean Water Act in the 1970s, the situation in the U.S. was much worse. "It's improved--but there's work to do," she says. "Without a greater focus on soil erosion, we'll be farming the subsoil, not the topsoil.”
Growth of Public/Private Partnerships
First, here's the good news about Iowa since 2020:
· 8 million acres no-till (~30% of acres)
· 3 million acres of cover crops per year (~12%) up from about one million acres five years ago)
· 150+ saturated buffers and bioreactors; only six between 2015-2020
· 105 CREP (Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program) and water quality wetlands since 2020. A total of 72 additional wetlands are underway.
"Conservation is absolutely exploding," McCabe says. This includes Regional Conservation Partnership Programs and State-Funded Watershed Programs. "There's a ton of public funding right now and a ton of private funding coming."
McCabe adds that Practical Farmers of Iowa also offers a popular cover crop cost-share program. My husband has participated for the past few years, and prior to this, he was part of Iowa's cost-share program for about a decade. Today, retired from crop farming, he works with our tenants, helping them to continue the practice on our land.
McCabe says larger stakeholders have formed the Central Iowa Cover Crop Partnership, including Heartland Co-op, Polk County, Iowa Dept. of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS), the Des Moines Water Works, and the City of Des Moines.
Heartland's Conservation Drainage Program is a public/private partnership with the Iowa Seed Association and IDALS. It focuses on bioreactors and saturated buffers, known as edge-of-field-practices. "They require a relatively small land ask, but yield an incredible impact," McCabe says. “I’m a big fan of keeping the best acres in production.”
The next initiative in one to two years is The Wetland Wave, a partnership of Heartland Co-op, Ducks Unlimited, Des Moines Waterworks, the City of Des Moines, the Great Outdoors Fund, IDALS, and many others This project will target high--impact, low-acreage wetlands to treat tile drainage water, and reduce downstream flooding impacts.
Roadblocks and Challenges
With so many positive developments underway, what could undermine future success? McCabe points to these significant factors:
(1) 60% of Iowa farmland is rented;
1/2 of these landowners never have farmed;
(2) 87% of Iowa's rented farmland is cash rented, allowing farmers to make all the decisions, but mostly limited to a one-year lease.
(3) 23% of Iowa farmland is owned in a trust;
(4) 20% of Iowa farmland is owned by nonresidents
What could help to counteract these prevailing conservation headwinds? McCabe suggests the following action steps:
# 1. Landowners
"Consider a collaborative, instead of a transactional relationship, with your farm tenant," she says. This could include:
· Multi year lease
· Flexible rent
· Crop share lease
· Splitting the cost of conservation adoption
Expect to encounter conservation growing pains entrenched in the status quo, as well as bureaucratic quagmires. "I often hear that farmers resist change," McCabe says. "No one likes change –– neither do landowners or federal agencies. One size doesn't fit all. We have 50 diverse states, yet often the rules are rigidly interpreted, with zero flexibility. Job approval authority is siloed at upper levels of federal agencies, and most conservation funding is siloed in one federal agency."
# 2. Voters
Ask lawmakers for more support for private/public partnerships, and more funding and flexibility for IDALS. "We need to support Iowa's Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund," McCabe says. Passed in 2010 as a constitutional amendment by 63% of voters, it requires a 3/8ths of 1¢ increase in sales tax. "Iowa hasn't raised the state sales tax since 2010," she points out. www.fundthetrust.org. Consider attending your county's Soil and Water Conservation District meetings (https://www.cdiowa.org)
# 3. Policymakers
McCabe says that her travel and study underscore this reality: "If conservation practices don't have an immediate bottom-line benefit, you won't see widespread adoption," she says. "Conservation is a bottom-line cost. Adoption must make financial sense for farmers and landowners." Here's the financial reality:
· Only $15-$25 cost-share per acre to plant cover crops up to 160 acres, compared to $35-$45 seed and planting costs per acre per year, along with the risk of a yield hit for corn, depending on spring moisture;
· Add in termination costs for cover crops, and you've got a $10-$20 net negative cost per acre;
· $10 per acre up to 160 acres first year only for no-till, with a yield drag the first 3-5 years
How does this compare to other countries or states? In Brazil, there's 100% no-till adoption and 50% cover crop adoption. There's no state or federal cost-share, but cover crops and no-till help farmers plant two crops per year and get a yield in the dry season.
In Western Canada, there's 100% no-till adoption. Again, there's no cost-share, but adoption enables farmers to skip chemical fallow and get a yield every year.
In Maryland, there's 55% no-till adoption and 50% cover crop adoption, and no-till helps conserve moisture. Although cover crops compete with a spring cash crop, Maryland's cost-share is $40-$60 per acre, with no acreage caps. "Farmers do it because it makes financial sense," she says.
McCabe says grass waterways are a U.S. success story: The cost-share usually is 50%, paid by the state. Federal cost-share (CRP) is 100% plus annual rent on acres. "I saw no waterways in Brazil or Canada," she says. "There's no cost-share in those countries."
In Ireland, McCabe discovered out-of-the box ideas, including income tax incentives for 5-year or longer leases; $19,600 for 5 years up to $43,700 over 15 years.
The takeaway for policymakers?
· Increase funding of cost-share.
· Remove acreage caps on state cost-share;
· Finally fund the Outdoor Trust Fund
The Takeaway for Iowans
It's easy to become apathetic, faced with the enormity of the challenges. But isn't it encouraging that a farm co-op has a team of conservation agronomists working with farmers? Imagine if every co-operative made this part of its business plan.
Other encouraging initiatives are taking place across Iowa without much fanfare. The northern counties of Hamilton, Hancock, Humboldt, Kossuth, and Wright formed the Boone River Watershed Management Authority in 2019. It's a cooperative agreement among cities, counties, and soil and water conservation districts. They're working together outside of the typical political boundaries to manage this watershed in ways that decrease flooding, incentivize on-farm conservation, improve recreational opportunities, and increase wildlife habitat and biodiversity.
"These issues bleed across municipal and county boundaries," says TC Loving, a member of the Humboldt County Soil and Water Conservation District. "We approach water quality and erosion by looking at the natural boundaries encompassing these problems." They want to hear from residents, farmers, and landowners by August 31. (BooneRiverWatershed@gmail.com)
In the meantime, this August McCabe is logging in lots of windshield-time traveling between farms. The fields are beautiful from the roads, but she knows the tall, green, growing crops camouflage a multitude of agronomic sins that will be revealed post-harvest. As she heads home, she knows it's been a good week when she can recite her mantra: "Another farmer, another acre, another practice."
But if she falls short of this goal, McCabe knows it's not all on her. It's not all on farmers, either. Or landowners. Or all Iowans. "We all have some responsibility for the elephant in the room," she says.
I’m delighted to be part of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative.
Excellent piece. If Iowa would boost cover crop cost share to $30 per acre with no acreage caps, we could see a far greener state, far healthier soil, better moisture retention, more helpful underground “wildlife”. But we must have a legislative branch and a Governor who lead us. Maryland puts us to shame. Thank you for keeping this crucial issue before us.
Great post, with excellent proposals to improve conservation in Iowa!