Wallaces Farmer

Citing its new study of eight key watersheds in Iowa, Environmental Working Group calls voluntary approach to soil conservation “a fool’s errand.”

Rod Swoboda 1, Editor, Wallaces Farmer

February 12, 2016

8 Min Read

I received a press release February 7 from the Environmental Working Group, based in Ames. It was headlined “Voluntary Conservation Practices Are a Fool’s Errand.” The release says a new EWG study of eight high-priority watersheds in Iowa reveals the fatal flaw in the voluntary approach to cutting water pollution coming from farm fields. That is, farmers who voluntarily start using soil conservation and water quality improvement practices can just as easily stop using them.

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We hear about the increase in the number of acres seeded to buffers, grass waterways, cover crops and other conservation practices each year in Iowa. “But touting the number of acres of new conservation practices farmers adopt without accounting for the number of losses is meaningless and misleading,” says Soren Rundquist, EWG director of landscape analysis. “It’s like trying to balance your checkbook by looking only at deposits and ignoring withdrawals.”

Are taxpayers getting additional environmental benefit?
Rundquist says the EWG report, titled “Fooling Ourselves: Voluntary Programs Fail to Clean Up Dirty Water”, helps to explain why Iowa’s water quality is still poor despite the $3 billion spent on voluntary federal programs in the state since 2005. Across the nation, tens of billions of dollars have been spent with similar results, the report says.

“We are fooling ourselves by clinging to the hope that voluntary conservation measures alone will clean up Iowa’s water,” says Craig Cox, EWG senior vice president. “It's time to require landowners to keep in place simple but effective practices to cut farm pollution. Throwing more federal and state dollars at the failed voluntary approach promoted by agricultural interests will get us nowhere.”

The EWG report says taxpayers are getting minimal additional environmental benefit for the federal and state cost-share dollars being provided to farmers and landowners for conservation programs and practices.

Little increase in acreage devoted to two key practices
In this study, EWG used aerial imagery available from USDA in eight key Iowa watersheds to track the simple but important practice of maintaining 75-foot-wide buffer zones of vegetative cover between crop fields and waterways. The purpose of the buffers is to stem the loss of nutrients that causes most of the state’s water quality problems.

The aerial imaging showed that between 2011 and 2014, landowners in the eight watersheds planted 45 new acres of grass to protect stream banks and filter out fertilizers, manure and farm chemicals that flow off crop fields. At the 75-foot width, that added up to protecting 11 miles of waterway.

But other landowners plowed up 119 acres of existing stream buffers and put that land back into crop production. The result was a net loss of 74 acres of grass buffer zones, stripping or shrinking the pollution-preventing buffers along at least 22 miles of waterway, twice as much as was added elsewhere. The study points out that in some cases, the grass buffer zones may have been narrowed but not completely eliminated.

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The EWG study also looked at a second widely-used conservation practice -- the seeding of grassed waterways -- a practice used inside of fields to prevent water runoff from forming gullies. The study found that farmers added 26 miles of grassed waterways in the eight watersheds, but during the same time period lost 21 miles of such protection.

EWG says state and federal conservation approach is flawed

More than 80% of the lost stream buffer acreage had been enrolled in a government program that paid farmers to keep the grass strips in place.

"EWG’s new report is timely and important. While the findings are upsetting, they are not surprising at all,” says Bill Stowe, CEO and general manager of Des Moines Water Works. “Agricultural interest groups, and state and federal officials, routinely say voluntary conservation practices are the best way to clean up the water. The public health of over 500,000 central Iowans who rely on the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers for drinking water simply cannot wait for voluntary practices to catch up with the reality of degrading Iowa environmental protection.”

Stowe says EWG’s study shows that the voluntary farm conservation approach is flawed. The report, he says, “has driven home with data that someone taking short-term incentives does not mean there will be a long-term environmental protection for the surface waters of this state. We need to assign accountability.”

Lawsuit seeks to have drainage districts regulated
Des Moines Water Works filed a federal lawsuit a year ago against drainage districts in three northwest Iowa counties, alleging that field tile are acting as conduit that speeds the flow of nitrates from farm fields into the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for Des Moines and metro area residents.

The utility seeks to have drainage districts and indirectly farmers regulated as point-source polluters, similar to industry, businesses and cities. Stowe says the Water Works spent $1.5 million last year to remove nitrates so it could meet federal clean water guidelines. Nitrate levels higher than 10 milligrams per liter could be harmful or even deadly to children six months and younger, the government says. Also, the state is under pressure to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus that enters Iowa streams and rivers and contributes to the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, an area unable to sustain marine life.

Standard of care recommended for landowners to follow
As the “basic standard of care” that landowners should meet, the EWG report recommends that farmers:

1) Keep 50 feet of vegetation between cropland and waterways to filter polluted runoff;

2) Heal or prevent temporary gullies that become direct pipelines delivering polluted runoff to streams and lakes;

3) Control livestock’s access to streams to prevent the battering that causes stream banks to collapse and foul waterways;

4) Not spread manure on frozen or snow-covered fields.

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Farmers who experience serious economic hardship in meeting this standard should get financial help from the government, says EWG, and well-funded voluntary programs should be created to assist growers willing to do more. “We should argue about whether these are the right standards,” says Cox, “but there has to be standards and they can’t be optional.”

To read the entire report online visit ewg.org/release/voluntary-conservation-practices-are-fool-s-errand.

Iowa ag leaders contend this EWG report is flawed
Some Iowa agricultural leaders say the EWG study doesn’t tell the whole story. They say it is flawed in part because it focused on only a couple of conservation practices and only during a small window (2011 to 2014) when corn and soybean prices were at record highs. High prices create intense incentive to pull more land into production and plant row crops closer to waterways, thus removing some of the grass buffer strip.

“Grass buffer strips and grass waterways are only two tools out of many practices farmers are using to conserve soil and protect water quality on their farms,” says Sean McMahon, executive director of the Iowa Agricultural Water Alliance, an organization backed by the Iowa Soybean Association, Iowa Corn Growers Association and Iowa Pork Producers Association. “There are a number of conservation practices, and we need to take a look at the big picture, at all the practices being used to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loss,” says McMahon.

For example, Iowa had 253,764 acres of buffers in January supported through the USDA Conservation Reserve Program and 25,203 CRP grassed waterways on 36,303 acres. More farmers are also using no-till, cover crops and installing terraces and other practices.

Now more incentive to put land into conservation
John Whitaker, head of USDA’s Farm Service Agency in Iowa, says enrollment in federal conservation programs such as CRP are influenced by market conditions such as farmland rents and crop prices. A few years ago when rents were skyrocketing, federal conservation programs weren’t as attractive to landowners.

Now, as crop prices have dropped significantly and cropland rental rates are falling, USDA programs such as the Conservation Reserve Program, Conservation Stewardship Program and others are attracting more interest from landowners and farmers.

Whitaker also points out that leaving a USDA CRP contract that lasts 10 to 15 years is difficult. Landowners or farmers must repay any money they received from the contract, plus pay interest and possibly penalties. “Breaking your contract is not something you want to do in year nine of the program,” he says.

More cost-share money is needed to get the job done
Looking at conservation cost-share practices that are funded by the state, Bill Northey, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, says Iowa is targeting its conservation spending to priority watersheds where the practices will make the most difference in improving and protecting water quality. Iowa has helped fund 16 large watershed conservation demonstration projects since 2013 and farmers and landowners are sharing the cost of putting those soil saving and water protection practices on their land. “These farmers and landowners are providing matching funds coming out of their own pockets,” notes Northey.

More cost-share money and other financial incentives need to be provided to get the conservation job done in Iowa, as several other recent studies indicate. “The Iowa Water Quality Initiative is about finding watersheds with nutrient issues and making improvements. It’s also about scaling up soil conservation and water quality improvement practices,” he says.

More farmers are using nutrient reduction practices
“We are seeing more farmers and landowners buying into the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, and they are doing it voluntarily,” notes Northey. “More farmers are following these science-based recommendations. There is a huge amount of interest, even in these times of low grain prices, times that are very financially challenging for farmers.”

He adds, “When we hold sign-ups for cost-share funding and for participation in these state and federal conservation programs, we always have more folks sign up than we have cost-share money available. And there are some farmers and landowners in Iowa who are going ahead and putting conservation and water quality improvement practices on their land without government cost-share funding; they are paying for it themselves.”

About the Author(s)

Rod Swoboda 1

Editor, Wallaces Farmer

Rod, who has been a member of the editorial staff of Wallaces Farmer magazine since 1976, was appointed editor of the magazine in April 2003. He is widely recognized around the state, especially for his articles on crop production and soil conservation topics, and has won several writing awards, in addition to honors from farm, commodity and conservation organizations.

"As only the tenth person to hold the position of Wallaces Farmer editor in the past 100 years, I take seriously my responsibility to provide readers with timely articles useful to them in their farming operations," Rod says.

Raised on a farm that is still owned and operated by his family, Rod enjoys writing and interviewing farmers and others involved in agriculture, as well as planning and editing the magazine. You can also find Rod at other Farm Progress Company activities where he has responsibilities associated with the magazine, including hosting the Farm Progress Show, Farm Progress Hay Expo and the Iowa Master Farmer program.

A University of Illinois grad with a Bachelors of Science degree in agriculture (ag journalism major), Rod joined Wallaces Farmer after working several years in Washington D.C. as a writer for Farm Business Incorporated.

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