National Gathering of Watershed Protection Initiatives:
New Approaches and New Tools for Whole Farm Planning to Protect Our
Nation's Natural Resources
Iowa State University
1026 Agronomy Hall, Ames, Iowa
November 5, 1995
Agenda
10:00 Welcome--Sue Jarnagin, Sociology Department, Iowa State
University
Introductions and Brief Descriptions of the Watershed
Initiatives by Participants
11:00 Breadth and Depth of Watershed Organizing in the U.S.
Karol Keppy, Project Manager, Know Your Watershed Campaign
11:30 Catskills Watershed-A Farm and Urban Cooperation Case Study
Sally Fairbairn, Watershed Agriculture Council/Catskill Center
12:15 Lunch (cost approximately $5.00)
1:00 Pesticide and Nutrient Balance Yardsticks- Quantitative
Tools and Results Rewarding for Water Quality Protection
Mark Ritchie, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
2:00 Linking Watershed Protection to Farming Systems Research
Dr. Ricardo Salvador, Associate Professor, Agronomy
Department, Iowa State University
2:45 Closing Comments
3:00 Adjourn
Please RSVP to Emily Green, IATP, 1313 5th St. SE, Suite 303,
Minneapolis, MN 55407
612-579-5980 ph; 612-579-5982 fx; egreen@iatp.org
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Yardsticks: A Bio-Regional Approach To Protecting Our Water
Resources
"We believe that the clean water program overemphasizes the treatment of
problems detected, at the expense of activities designed to prevent or
minimize problems in the first place. In particular, greater emphasis is
needed on activities such as (1) the well head protection program, which is
designed to prevent contaminants from finding their way into underground
water supplies. ... EPA has long acknowledged, near-term investments in
preventive programs such as these can improve compliance and prevent much
larger cleanup costs in the long term" (GAO testimony, March 1994).
Pesticide, fertilizer, and manure run-off from farms, forests, parks, golf
courses, residential lawns, and other stretches of land are a major source
of contamination of our drinking water and wildlife habitats. Unless the
flow of these pollutants into the streams, rivers, and lakes can be reduced
small towns and cities will not be able to meet current and future health
standards without an enormous investment in water treatment facilities.
Habitat for endangered and native species, already severely compromised,
will be furthered degraded.
While run-off from non-farm sources, such as factories, waste
dumps, golf courses, forests, and residential lawns is a key problem, a
significant source of the run-off problems facing watersheds across the
country come from farms. According to the 1994 report "Restoring the Big
River" by the Izaak Walton League and the Natural Resources Defense
Council, agricultural activities are the most "prevalent causes of fish
kills" in the Mississippi; according to U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency studies conducted in 1990, pesticides alone impaired the safety of
11.2% of all assessed river miles.
Chemical and fertilizer run-off from farms is a classic problem for
which pollution prevention is the only feasible solution. The costs of
cleaning up our drinking water through secondary and tertiary filtration
is, quite simply, not affordable. For example, the city of New York faces
an estimated cost of $1000 per household for additional water treatment if
contaminant run-off into the cities drinking water is not reduced. It
would be foolhardy in today's political climate to call for this kind of
tax increase. Lawmakers will undoubtedly choose to deny that the level of
chemicals and nitrates in our drinking water is a problems if the only
other alternative is raising taxes for expensive new water treatment
facilities.
Dutch "Yardsticks" : An Innovative Approach
The Netherlands is one of the world's most environmentally
sensitive lands. With an average altitude of 50 feet below sea level, the
issue of water is central to all aspects of life. The entire nation's
drinking water supplies are at the surface or within a few yards of the
surface, making them extremely vulnerable to contamination from
agrichemicals and manure from the Netherlands' intensive dairy production.
Contamination of drinking water by agricultural run-off has been
identified by Dutch officials for many years as a serious health threat,
and radical measures have been taken to tackle this problem, including the
banning of many chemicals, strict regulation on the application of those
still permitted, and limitations on livestock operations where manure
run-off is most severe. While this direct government intervention has been
very important, it has been only a partial solution.
The Center for Agriculture and the Environment (CLM), based in
Utrecht, Netherlands developed a series of new farm management tool, called
"yardsticks," designed to help farmers reduce the negative impacts of
pesticides and fertilizers, especially on drinking water supplies.
"Yardsticks" are a simple, elegant, and extremely effective way for farmers
to measure and understand the environmental impacts of their current
farming practices and to help then to choose different production methods
which can reduce negative impacts.
These yardsticks are now in widespread use by farmers in the
Netherlands. The nutrient balance yardstick is becoming part of Dutch
national farm policy and the pesticide yardstick has led to voluntary
reductions of 70% or more in environmental impacts. During this next year
these tools will be adapted for use in other European countries, and the
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy will begin experimenting with
their use here in the United States. Here's how they work.
Reaching farmers through the heart, the head, and the pocketbook
Farmers keep records of their pesticide and fertilizer (both
artificial and manure) application practices, including the kinds of
chemicals used, the amount of applications per acre, time of year of
applications, and the methods of application. Each factor is given a
numerical score which signifies the estimated negative impact on the
environment. At the end of each growing season, farmers add up their total
scores for a numerical representation of their impact. They then have a
"baseline" of information on how their current farming practices are
affecting the environment.
The Dutch often describe this process of establishing a baseline as
a way to reach farmers "through the heart". When farmers can
quantitatively measure the impact of their farming practices it is a
stimulus to action.
Once the baseline is determined, farmers can then make rational
decisions about how much they would like to reduce the per acre loss of
fertilizer nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium) or by what
percentage they would like to reduce their pesticide use impact score.
Although the yardsticks are primarily measurement tools, the pesticide
yardstick can also be used to guide choices among different farming
options. If a farm family decides to reduce their pesticide score by 10% in
the next crop year, then they can use the yardstick to evaluate alternative
farming practices, such as using different pesticides, fewer applications,
or more mechanical tillage to find the most cost-effective way to achieve
this impact reduction goal.
At the end of the season the farmers use the yardsticks to measure
their progress in reducing nutrient loss or pesticide use impacts. They
can see if the nutrient loss reduction steps they took did in fact reduce
nutrient loss at the level they had hoped or determine if they were able to
alter their pesticide use practices enough to achieve the 10% reduction in
score goal they had set for themselves.
The Dutch describe this process of goal setting and measuring
performance as a way to "reach farmers through the head" because it is a
challenge that excites many farmers and it is very practical.
In the Netherlands, this system has been in place for over four
years, with remarkable results. These results have not gone unnoticed.
Water companies who supply drinking water to towns and cities have begun to
pay farmers a bonus for achieving specific percentage reductions in their
pesticide impact scores or for specific levels of reduction in nutrient
loss. The Dutch talk about this as "reaching farmers through the
pocketbook." It takes time and money to make these changes, and there is a
certain amount of risk involved to the farmer. Given that all of society
benefits, it is only fair that the costs are shared.
Bringing the Yardsticks to the United States
In March of 1995, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
(IATP) organized visits by both the president and the executive director of
the Center for Agriculture and the Environment to Minnesota to discuss the
possibility of introducing these tools into the United States. In addition
to extensive meetings with IATP staff, they also met with farmers,
policymakers, and other groups working on sustainable agriculture in
Minnesota and in other states to explore potential interest in these ideas.
Based on these discussions, we believe that the time is right to
begin adapting the pesticide and the fertilizer "yardsticks" for use here
in the United States. We have made an agreement with CLM to help us develop
this program, as a multi-year process, starting with a number of small
pilot projects. Some of the advantages of this approach that we are
emphasizing;
1) It is a bio-regional approach that reinforces an integrated, balanced
approach to environmental protection.
2) It takes both economic and environmental factors into consideration.
3) It is voluntary and based on farmer-initiated decision-making.
4) It provides a way to quantify the current reality and to see if desired
objectives are being achieved. A lot of money is being spent for
water-quality protection, but exactly what is being achieved is difficult
to determine without these tools.
5) Whole farm planning, holistic resource management, and best management
practices (BMP) techniques need quantitative tools, like these yardsticks,
for both diagnostic purposes and to demonstrate that real progress is being
made.
6) Taxpayer funds are being used to pay for a wide variety of on- and
off-farm activities designed to reduce run-off and negative environmental
impacts without any method of accountability or measurement of impacts. The
yardsticks are designed precisely for this purpose.
7) The Dutch have evolved this tool to the point where they are planning
special consumer labeling for products grown with the help of these tools.
A similar labeling plan could be developed here in the United States.
8) Yardsticks can be the basis for incorporating the concepts of
performance measurement, continuous progress, and results rewarding in
agriculture.
9) Used in conjunction with the excellent available computer-based planning
tools that are now available, such as "Planetor", yardsticks provide a
way of evaluating results on a quantitative basis.
This winter we will be working with local groups of farmers to
experiment with the nutrient balance yardstick and adapting the pesticide
yardstick to U.S. conditions. For more information, contact project
director Emily Green, at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Emily Green
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
1313 Fifth Street, SE, Suite 303
Minneapolis, MN 55414 USA
tel. 612-379-5980
fax. 612-379-5982
email egreen@iatp.org