DUBUQUE, Iowa — Truterra, LLC, the sustainability business and subsidiary of Land O’Lakes, Inc., one of America’s largest farmer-owned cooperatives, together with Dubuque County, announced exciting results from their Land Stewardship Initiative, a pay-for-performance, public-private collaborative program. These results verify the power and impact of voluntary, incentive-based approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve water quality in partnership with farmers.
The Land Stewardship Initiative was launched by Dubuque County, the Dubuque Soil and Water Conservation District, Truterra and local Truterra ag retailer Innovative Ag Services (IAS). In its first year, the program worked with 26 participating farmers across nearly 2,800 acres in Dubuque County to adopt more sustainable farming practices, with a particular focus on creating a healthier watershed. As a result of quantifiable and verifiable progress achieved between 2020 and 2021, it is anticipated that participating farmers will be compensated $92,000 total, averaging a return of approximately $33 per acre.
In 2021, participating farmers in Dubuque County adopted advanced nutrient management systems on 1,591 new acres, adopted cover crops on 1,175 new acres, and adopted no-till on 183 new acres. As a result of these practice changes:
- On average, participating acres were net carbon negative, sequestering nearly twice as much greenhouse gases in 2021 as they emitted in 2020. The program measured a 196% reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions because of new stewardship practices implemented in 2021 such as adding cover crops or implementing reduced tillage. This reduction is equivalent to the emissions produced by 125 passenger cars for one year, based on the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator.
- Local water quality improved, based on two different metrics. In 2021, participating farmers reduced the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus lost from the field to local waterways by 21.9 pounds/acre and 2.67 pounds/acre, respectively. Participating farmers also reduced sheet and rill erosion by nearly one sixth (14%) between 2020 and 2021, keeping valuable soil on the field and reducing nutrient loss into water resources.
“The results from the first year of the Dubuque County program – a model powered by Truterra’s technology that we believe can be replicated and scaled in other communities across the country – build confidence in the climate benefits of voluntary, incentive-based approaches to sequester carbon on farms,” said Jason Weller, President, Truterra. “As interest in climate-smart agricultural commodities and farm products continues to grow, models like the Land Stewardship Initiative support the maturity of those markets and ensures farmers are well-positioned to capitalize on the growing demand while achieving considerable environmental and climate benefits for their communities.”
Participating farmers used the Truterra™ sustainability tool to benchmark their 2020 farm data and evaluate the impact of new conservation practices implemented in 2021, including cover crops, conservation tillage and nutrient management.
“We set out to create a healthier watershed here in Dubuque County by partnering with Truterra and local farmers, and we are encouraged to see what progress looks like when farmers are given the data and tools they need to expand on-farm conservation practices,” said Eric Schmechel, Watershed Program Director, Dubuque Soil and Water Conservation District. “We are committed to continuing to lower some of the barriers that farmers face in implementing practice changes so that our whole community can benefit from healthier soil, water and climate.”
Truterra recognizes there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to positively affecting sustainability. The program did not require certain practice changes to be made. Instead, farmers were in the driver’s seat to use their data-driven insights to implement the conservation practices that worked best for their operations and were rewarded for holistic improvements in the environmental impact of their land.
“It was valuable for me to receive some financial and technical support to try out several new conservation practices I’d been considering for some time,” said Terry Harder, a farmer who participated in the program. “It is also rewarding to have new data in hand about my farm’s performance that I can use to inform future decision making about conservation practices that proved to be good for the environment and for my bottom line. I may even look at participating in a carbon market in the future now that I am sequestering carbon on my land and have the tools in place to measure that impact.”
New funding has been approved for the project in 2022 to provide another round of financial incentives and technical support for farmers in Dubuque County to boost their on-farm sustainability. For more information about how to get involved, please contact Eric Schmechel with the Dubuque Soil and Water Conservation District at (920) 327-0908 or eric.schmechel@dubuquecounty.us.
— Truterra