Properly Incentivizing CRP Buffer Strips to Reduce Nutrient Run Off
Currently United States farmers face an uphill battle trying to maximize yields but doing so in a sustainable manner. A vast majority of farmers use supplemental nutrients and fertilizers to improve the performance of their fields (Udawatta et al 2006). However, most nutrients are applied in excess of crop need which leads to nutrient run off into the watershed system (Blesh and Drinkwater 2013). When chemicals and fertilizers enter the watershed their ultimate fate is the Gulf of Mexico, which is facing record pollution damage from this run off. In an effort to reduce run off, programs implementing buffer strips along bodies of water to reduce the amount of toxins that enter
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As a side effect, run off and water toxins have also increased. A major contributing factor to this issue of run off is the over application of fertilizers (Udawatta et al 2006). In an average crop season 50% of fertilizer loss is not uncommon. CRP buffer strips are a combination of deep rooting grass species that have the capability to hold topsoil and nutrients in place. By using a CRP buffer strip of 40 to 100 feet wide, nutrient runoff can be reduced by up to 73% (Loftus and Kraft 2003). The added benefit of incentivizing farmers adequately for this addition to their farms makes it more enticing to adopt. Farmers will be incentivized to a level of profit that is comparable to crop production in these buffer strips to help justify removing the row cropping system from these areas. Targeting the areas closest to water sources will be the initiative of the program, but will not be limited to these areas only. Adding buffer strips around areas like ditches or in field waterways that bring drainage water from distant fields to larger bodies of water will add to the effectiveness of this program (Strock et al 2010). In addition to the reduction in run off, these CRP buffer strips have added benefit in diversifying the wildlife in that area. The CRP will provide a safe pathway from habitat to habitat as well as create new homes and food sources for other wildlife in the …show more content…
In an effort to be proactive instead of reactive a subsidy will be offered to farmers for reducing fertilizer inputs or using alternative sources of fertilizer near their CRP buffer strips. Alternative sources like cover crops have the ability to provide available nutrients to the next season crop as well as offer protection from run off in the off-season (Delgado et al 2007). Cover crops have been shown to reduce run off by about 40% as well as provide up to 50% of nitrogen needed for the following crop (Delgado et al 2007). With these duel benefits cover crops are more than ideal to assist in reducing run off
In 2010, there was a huge oil spill near the Gulf of Mexico that we now know as the BP Oil Spill today. The Spill sent about 170 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The spill killed 11 men aboard the deep-water Horizon. The BP Oil Spill impacted the environment very negatively. There were different types of environmental impact as a result of the Oil Spill, but the two that grabbed my attention the most are the Polluted Air and the Contaminated Food Chain. The first impact that grabbed my attention was the Polluted Air. Because of the Oil Spill, the air around the surroundings neighborhoods was polluted. All the lightest chemicals in the oil that had spill evaporated within hours of the incidence forming air pollution particles. These particles that are in the air poses significant threats to the human health from being inhaled. The chemical found in the particles that was formed is known as Volatile, which has been known to cause respiratory irritation and central nervous system depression (Solomon & Janssen, 2010). The second impact that grabbed my attention was the contamination of the food chain, specifically the food chain of sea animals that lives near the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists found traces of oil in zooplanktons; this could only mean that the sea creature has had contact with the spilled oil. According to the Staff at Houston Business Journal (2012), “Baby fish and shrimp feed on the tiny, drifting zooplankton, and then introduce contamination and pollution to the larger sea creatures in the food web.” With these findings, it isn’t going to take long before the baby fishes become grown and caught by fishermen and before we know it, it’s on our dinner plate. And here we are eating fishes w...
middle of paper ... ... Katsvairo, Tawainga W., David L. Wright, Jim J. Marois, and Pawel P. Wiatrak. "Making the Transition from Conventional to Organic Farming Using Conservation Tillage in Florida. " University of Florida IFAS Extension.
The first piece of evidence that the continual cropping system is inefficient, is that it is the least productive growing system. In experiments done in Wooster, Ohio, it was found that a field where crop rotation was used could produce 27.62 bushels of corn per acre, a field with continual cropping produced only 13.33 bushels per acre, and where chemical fertilizer was used on a continuous cropped field, 30.53 bushels per acre were produced (Weir, 1936,p. 502). Though it interesting that these facts are fundamental enough to have been discovered before 1936, it should also be noted that a recent eight year study done at the University of Nebraska, where scientists compared thirteen cropping systems, "the results confirmed the findings of studies done in the first half of the century"(Committee on the Role of Alt. Farm. Methods, 1989, p.229). If continual cropping is the least effective method o...
Corn took over American farmlands at the end of World War II, when a new synthetic fertilizer was introduced and manufactured by former munitions factories. It allowed for the elimination of crop rotation, leading to the switch from family farms to the corn monoculture. Economically, this system seems to make more sense, but it destroyed the once sustainable, sun-driven fertility cycle. Now, farmers are trapped into making more and more corn by government policy. As the abundance of the crop causes prices to fall, farmers must plant even more in order to make ends meet, surviving off constantly decreasing government subsidies. What’s worse is that the New Deal system that allowed corn farmers to stay afloat has since been dismantled in an effort to lower food prices and increase production without considering the farmers
To really begin to understand this complex topic a person really needs to understand the basics of agricultural subsidizing. A subsidy is defined as a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise deemed advantageous to the public (Mish, 2003). More specifically, in the agricultural industry the government provides financial assistance to producers in the farm industry in order to prevent decline in production. The government does this by providing financial assistance to farmers and by managing the cost and supply of certain commodities. There a few reasons for this. One reason is to provide assistance to family sized farm owners who have trouble competing with commercial farms. This is supposed to maintain an efficient market balance. Another reason is to control the prices of commodities and keep the global food prices low. There are two main ways that payments are made. The payments may be made directly based on historical cropping patterns on a fixed number of acres. Or they can also be made depending on current market prices. Farmer’s may be guaranteed...
...at over planting can do to the land, the majority of the United States just moved on and continued to treat the land just as poorly as before. John Pursell views chemical fertilizer as a thing that turns soil into “chemical wasteland” and mentions that today’s soil is often not good enough to resist heavy rainfalls.
Pederson, T.L. “Agricultural Run-off as a Source of Drinking Water Contamination.” ExtoxNet FAQs. Oregon State University. June 1997. Web. 10 April 2014.
Mike Clark is a PhD student in the Forest Resources Graduate Seminar with an agriculture emphasis. Before beginning his graduate studies, he majored in biology. Mike did not go in depth on his credentials or background on agriculture. From his presentation, I concluded that he was attempting to persuade this audience, but I will go more in depth on this later.
According to research conducted by Harvard University, over six million people in the United States are using water that contains an excessive amount of PFAS, a kind of chemical that use in the industrial sector. Among the victimized districts, California stands out as one of most heavily influenced state (Water in California). California is a big state in the United States, and it is also one of the driest states. Over one hundred years ago, most areas in California were still the drought. Later, California develops rapidly and becomes the state with the largest population and a specialty in farming in the US. Needless to say, water is a critical resource for common households and the farming as well as many other industries. There is a huge
... (The Issues: Factory Farming, n.d.). Nutrients and bacteria from that waste can also contaminate waterways, disturbing the aquatic ecosystems.
I am particularly surprised how the agricultural industry inflicts these problems on themselves, by excessive use of sewage systems and pollutants which find their way to local rivers [Fig 1.]. The trophic state (i.e. the natural nutrition factors) and biodiversity of lakes and rivers are greatly effected by the main nutrients involved, nitrates and phosphates. The transition occurs mainly between a mesotropic state, with an average biological productivity to a eutrophic state where there is a larger production of organisms due to high nutrient concentrations. Tropical reservoirs in particular often become eutrophic.
...t too expensive for the farmers. The second step is that broader awareness is required. According to Sarah Alexander, “different farmers trust different sources, such as vendors, crop consultants, and university extension services.” Farmers are going to need to be open minded to new things, in order to feed the human race. The last step is farmers need the right incentives. Farmers want to know about the good that they are doing. Farmer’s want to know how they are saving the environment, and how they are producing more food, and feeding more people than they were before.
Agriculture also leads to soil erosion, both through rainfall and wind. This soil can damage the aquatic ecosystems it ends up in, an...
The oceans need to be protected because it is where life began and if not taken care of, life as we know it will end. When dangerous substances go into the ocean, ecosystems are suffer and become endangered along with lives of people and of marine life. Surfrider Foundation recognizes the importance of protecting and preserving the quality and biodiversity of the world's coasts because they are truly irreplaceable. There is also historical evidence of ocean pollution being present in the past, but the problem still lingers today. Heal the Bay discovered that,“Did you know there is a DDT and PCB hot spot off the coast of Palos Verdes? This superfund site (which indicates it's one of the most polluted places in the United States), is left over from a 1930's era chemical plant. Because DDT takes so long to break down in the marine environment, it persists to this day, contaminating certain species of fish. There are also highly polluted sediments in the Long Beach area, a sign of the heavy shipping in the port. Heal the Bay works on developing effective capping and removal plans to keep those toxins from spreading” (Heal the Bay). DDT is still highly concentrated in the South Bay area and still contaminating different species of fish. Even after more than 80 years DDT, a toxic insecticide, is still very concentrated and during upwellings, DDT particles come back up and continue to harm marine life. If humans are careless about what is thrown on the floor or sprayed on lawns, it can lead to disastrous affects when it comes to the condition of the ocean's ecosystems, and can endanger life itself leading to a problem that only we can mend.
By using Best Management Practices there was looked at the cost effectiveness in reducing sediment ,nitrates and phosphorus pollution which will get into the surface water via fertilizer. This fertilizer is used by farmers and the use of filter strips at the edge of a corn field should prevent the loss of all these nutrients in the surface water. This method proved effective since it reduced the overall pollution and it shows that by combining targeted BMP implementation strategies, multiple pollution types can be reduced at small cost.