Adaptive Management: An Environmental Organization's Perspective.

It has become increasingly clear that efforts to reduce nutrient losses from agriculture will remain limited unless farmers are fully engaged, science is the driver, and economics play a central role. Adaptive management of nutrients focuses on gathering and analyzing field-specific information, creating a feedback loop of that information to the growers, and using the information to fine-tune generalized recommendations. This approach requires a higher level of grower engagement than is customary, but delivers a higher adoption rate because the grower is part of the decision-making process, understands the data/rationale behind management decisions, and benefits from an integrated focus on both environment and economics. Advancing adaptive management of nutrients will require a change in how state and federal agencies approach nutrient management. Currently, most programs focus on implementation of recommended practices, which are generalized recommendations, when effective nutrient management requires field-specific recommendations. Field-specific recommendations are developed by post-mortem evaluations of the recommendations. Adaptive management enables field-specific recommendations by data collection and analysis, continual fine tuning of recommendations, and flexibility to differ from “approved rates”. I will show examples from the Bay Farms program in Lancaster County, PA how evaluation tools, such as cornstalk nitrate testing and aerial imagery, can fine tune recommendations. An infrastructure will be needed to collect, analyze, and feed back field-specific and aggregated results from large-scale evaluations to producers. This support network will need to engage both the public sector advisors and the private sector consultants to whom many growers look to for advice.