Using pay-for-performance conservation to address the challenges of the next farm bill

Excerpt

Picture this. It's late winter, and Mr. Brown, an Iowa farmer with 283 ha (700 ac) of corn and soybeans and a midsized hog operation, is planning for the upcoming crop season. He wants to participate in a conservation program, but he's not looking through a long list of predefined practice standards, trying to find a few that would fit on his farm. Instead, he's analyzing his operation, identifying where soil and excess nutrients might be leaving his fields, and thinking of changes he could make to stop those losses. Why? Mr. Brown is not preparing for a traditional conservation program. Instead, he's preparing for a pay-for-performance conservation program, which pays farmers by the pound for quantifiable reductions in sediment and nutrient losses.

Since phosphorus (P) is the primary water quality concern in Mr. Brown's watershed, he's focusing on ways to slow down P loss. The next day, a USDA conservationist comes to his farm to help him develop a concrete plan.

First, they work together to estimate Mr. Brown's current P losses using the Iowa Phosphorous Index, which the USDA state office has decided to use to quantify P loss from farms in this watershed. Then they come up…