Scaling up conservation agriculture: An exploration of challenges and opportunities through a stakeholder engagement process

Abstract

Increasing the resilience of agricultural landscapes requires fundamental changes to the dominant commodity production model, including incorporating practices such as reduced tillage, cover cropping, and extended rotations that reduce soil disturbance while increasing biological diversity. Increasing farmer adoption of these conservation systems offers the potential to transform agriculture to a more vibrant, resilient system that protects soil, air, and water quality. Adoption of these resilience practices is not without significant challenges. This paper presents findings from a participatory effort to better understand these challenges and to develop solutions to help producers overcome them. Through repeated, facilitated discussions with farmers and agricultural and conservation professionals across the U.S. state of Michigan, we confronted the policy, economic, and structural barriers that are inhibiting broader adoption of conservation systems, as well as identified policies, programs, and markets that can support their adoption. What emerged was a complex picture and dynamic set of challenges at multiple spatial scales and across multiple domains. The primary themes emerging from these discussions were barriers and opportunities, including markets, social networks, human capital, and conservation programs. Exacerbating the technical, agronomic, and economic challenges farmers face at the farm level, there are a host of community constraints, market access and availability problems, climatic and environmental changes, and policies (governmental and corporate) that cross-pressure farmers when it comes to making conservation decisions. Understanding these constraints is critical to developing programs, policies, and state and national investments that can drive adoption of conservation agriculture.

Enhancing the Soil Health–Watershed Health Nexus: Introduction

“…(2022) and Reimer et al. (2022). The two projects provide frameworks that assess the benefits and current limitations of existing farm policies, markets, and conservation programs.…”

“…Reimer et al. (2022) engaged stakeholders using facilitated discussions and surveys, while Gutknecht et al. (2022) designed on‐farm participatory research with growers enrolled in the Minnesota Natural Resources Conservation Service's Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).…”

A Crucial Role for Technology in Sustainable Agriculture

“…19 In context of a changing climate, the need to reinforce and extend these practices is apparent. 20,21 CA makes Green Revolution efficiencies more sustainable by adding the principles of an agronomic system to sustain land quality and environment. Relevant details of the three principles of CA and the challenges that remain for fuller implementation are addressed in turn below.…”

“…CA is designed to reduce soil erosion, enhance soil carbon retention, reduce production costs, and diminish groundwater pollution from runoff eluates, including nitrogenous fertilizer residues, and has been demonstrated to be effective in these respects . In context of a changing climate, the need to reinforce and extend these practices is apparent. , CA makes Green Revolution efficiencies more sustainable by adding the principles of an agronomic system to sustain land quality and environment. Relevant details of the three principles of CA and the challenges that remain for fuller implementation are addressed in turn below.…”

Connecting soil health and water quality in agricultural landscapes

“…Finally, Reimer et al. (2022) explore farmer and industry adoption of resilient agricultural systems, finding that adoption is constrained by markets, social networks, human capital, and conservation programs. Their approach of examining the interplay between large‐ and small‐scale social and systemic factors and individual decision‐making is parallel to the need to understand soil–water interactions and watershed‐scale impacts.…”