By Matt Reese and Dale Minyo
Farmers are on the front lines of protecting soil health and sequestering carbon, and it’s time they finally received a financial reward for their efforts.
With that in mind, Ohio corn and soybean farmers can participate in cost-share programs through Farmers for Soil Health, a collaboration between the National Corn Growers Association, the National Pork Board and the United Soybean Board. The goal is to advance conservation efforts to improve soil health across the U.S., including doubling the U.S. cover crop acreage to 30 million acres by 2030. The primary purpose is to provide funding through exemplary, science-driven initiatives that recognize farmers across the country. Ohio Corn & Wheat, the Ohio Soybean Council and the Ohio Pork Producers Council are working with The Nature Conservancy to advance the program in the Buckeye State.
“We’ve partnered to bring federal funds to the state level. That’s one of the options for farmers who want to experiment with certain practices in their fields to meet some of these climate-friendly goals. Those funds have been allocated, and we can also bring them here to help Ohio farmers implement practices that they may have been undecided about in recent years,” said Luke Crumley of Ohio Corn & Wheat. “These climate-friendly funds have become available, and there’s a flurry of activity to create programs that work. The federal government, in a rare instance, has recognized the value of avoiding a one-size-fits-all solution and is instead relying on our states to identify the challenges here on the ground. That’s a situation that doesn’t always happen with these programs. So the national partnership came about, and then our partner organizations at the state level have looked at implementation. We were already working with The Nature Conservancy to improve water quality in the western Lake Erie Basin, and we saw this program as an opportunity to bring some of those successful practices to other parts of the state. That’s how we got here.”
The program could be of interest to farmers who want to include or expand the cultivation of catch crops in their crop rotation.
“For farmers who have been on the fence about whether to grow cover crops, this could be the deciding factor to try it out. And if they do this particular project and maybe combine it with conservation tillage or no-till, they’re diving into the world of carbon sequestration,” Crumley said. “As we talk about biofuel policy and the need for low-carbon corn and look to the future, this is an opportunity to experiment with some of these practices that could give you new market opportunities down the road. Farmers in Ohio have the opportunity to participate, and if this is a program that helps a farmer experiment, maybe try cover crops for a couple of years and see if it works in their rotation, that’s a win.”
Participating farmers who plant cover crops receive payments to facilitate the transition. Eligible farmers participate in measurements, reports and verifications to highlight progress in expanding cover crops. Farmers can enroll at farmersforsoilhealth.com. One benefit of the program is the simplicity of enrollment and monitoring. Farmers can enroll quickly and easily through the online enrollment platform and all monitoring/verification is done remotely via satellite.
Brent Nicol is an agronomist for The Nature Conservancy in Ohio and helps implement the Farmers for Soil Health program.
“To put it simply, the overall goal is to encourage the use of soil health measures, particularly in this program that focuses on cover crops, to improve farmer profitability as well as sustainability in the field. Ultimately, Farmers For Soil Health is a farmer incentive program and we also provide technical assistance to anyone who wants to sign up,” Nicol said. “We have money allocated for new cover crop areas as well as ongoing cover crop areas. For a farmer who wants to try some cover crops in the first year, that incentive payment is about $25 per acre. It’s a 3-year contract, so in the second year of this program, it would be $15 per acre for the new cover crop areas and $10 per acre in the third year. For farmers who already have cover crops and have been growing them for a number of years or even longer, there is an incentive payment of $2 per acre, capped at 1,000 acres per applicant, including the new acres and the existing acres.”
In addition to financial support, growing cover crops offers countless benefits for soil health on farmland.
“In terms of impact on soil health, the increase in organic matter per year is about a tenth of a percent, that’s an anecdotal statement, but when you think about it, that’s a pretty big change. Over the course of 10 years, you can increase your organic matter content from, say, a field of 2% organic matter up to 3%. That 1% organic matter can store about 20,000 to 25,000 gallons of water per acre,” Nicol said. “And sometimes we have these really wet springs. Cover crops can help with both farm sustainability and profitability at the end of the day.”
There are also benefits in weed control.
“Rye, for example, has an allelopathic effect on small-seeded broadleaf trees. It secretes a plant chemical in the soil that interferes with the germination of some of these small-seeded broadleaf trees,” Nicol said. “I’m from Union County, near Milford Center, and since 2017 or 2018, I’ve noticed the heavy influx of waterhemp – a small-seeded broadleaf tree. Some of these people are coming there with rye to mitigate the germination of this waterhemp, especially since it’s coming in so late in the season.”
Registration for the program is possible every year until 2027. Registration for 2024 is now possible until around February or March 2025.
“There’s a little bit of a look back. If someone wants to sign up in December or January after they’ve already completed planting for 2024, they can do that,” Nicol said. “It’s a 3-year contract, but there’s no penalty if you get out, so it gives farmers some sense of security. For our 2023 signups, we signed up about 5,000 acres. We’ve had a pretty good first few months of the program, and it looks like hopefully 2024 will be the same. We’re trying to get to 60,000 acres here, so the more people we can get on board, the sooner the better, and the better case we can make for additional funding in the future.”
Those interested can start the process by visiting farmersforsoilhealth.com.
