Without Carrot or Stick: Promoting Conservation Practices On Small Dairy Farms.

Cover crops and manure injection in combination with no-tillage are considered key conservation practices to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay while maintaining viable farm communities. Financial assistance or enforcement actions to stimulate cover crop adoption have many disadvantages and high costs. In this project we promote these BMPs among small dairy farmers (including Anabaptists) through extension and farmer networks. We 1) establish 10 on-farm demonstrations of innovative cover crops with manure injection; 2) develop case studies highlighting practice benefits to conservation, production and economics; 3) produce and disseminate educational materials (farmer videos, extension bulletins, and project website); 4) host outreach events (field days, workshops) for farmer networks, extension, agency partners, and agribusinesses; and 5) increase communication among farmer networks, extension, and agency partners. We emphasize immediate and long-term benefits to farmers (cover crop forage potential, nutrient conservation, increased organic matter and environmental stewardship). Adoption of cover crops alone on 160,000 new acres is calculated to reduce sediment loading by 320,000 tons, nitrogen loading by 8 million pounds, and phosphorus loading by 480,000 pounds from the Pennsylvania portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Our approach is expected to lead to rapid adoption of these BMPs at very low cost compared to financial assistance or enforcement approaches. Extension used similar techniques to promote no-till and increased no-till adoption from 20% (2000) to 57% (2009). Success depends on a critical mass of Agronomy Extension Educators, good inter-agency collaboration, core support personnel on campus, and operational funds for plot work, production/ distribution of educational materials, and outreach events (field days, etc.). The project offers farmers no direct financial assistance or threat of enforcement. Costs of a subsidy program at $40/A/yr on 160,000 acres would be $19.2 million over three years, compared with this project, $0.5 million (including match), saving $18.7 million.