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Missouri Corn: voluntary conservation practices helping water quality and farm profitability

The director of environmental programs with Missouri Corn says the voluntary practices Missouri farmers are taking to improve water quality have been working.

Kurt Boeckmann tells Brownfield farmers are implementing cover crops, terraces, and grassed waterways to reduce erosion and nutrient loss.

“Some of these practices can reduce phosphorus losses by 80 percent. I think we’re being effective and it’s not always easy to measure in the short-term.”

Ag and environmental stakeholders met last week to discuss water quality and Missouri’s Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy. The strategy went into effect in 2014, is voluntary, and designed to improve water quality and reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus moving into the Gulf.

The meeting highlighted available programs for farmers and ways for them stay profitable while improving water quality.

There was a presentation on Precision Conservation Management.

“It’s happening in other states and the Missouri Corn Merchandising Council helped bring it to Missouri,” says Boeckmann. “It focuses specifically with growers in Missouri to implement conservation practices like cover crops, nitrogen management and reducing tillage on their operations.”

He says the CRCL project at the Missouri Center for Regenerative Ag is another way farmers can have more climate resilient crops and livestock.

“It takes a look at how cover crops and nutrient management can be used to improve their bottom line.”

Boeckmann also credits the Soil and Water and Conservation Cost-Share Program, funded by the Missouri Parks, Soils and Water Sales Tax, for helping farmers improve nutrient loss and soil erosion.

Later this year, Boeckmann says voters will decide if the Missouri Parks, Soil and Water Sales Tax will be renewed to fund conservation programs across the state.

“That sales tax really brings a lot of agriculture to Missouri. It provides an opportunity for farmers to participate in those programs. It focuses on what’s the environmental outcome of implementing these practices? What’s the availability? And it also focuses on profitability.”

Moving forward, Boeckmann says Missouri and stakeholders involved with the state’s nutrient loss reduction strategy are focused on getting more farmers to adopt and participate in the voluntary conservation practices, and gathering better data on what’s actually working.

Read more about Missouri’s Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy.

Hear more in Brownfield’s interview with Boeckmann – Part 1.

Hear more in Brownfield’s interview with Boeckmann – Part 2.