Project Number: 3622-21660-001-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Jun 27, 2007
End Date: Nov 30, 2008

Objective:
New farming systems need to be designed that can not only return a greater portion of the food system income to producers, but which can also reward them for the ecosystem servicing value that multiple use agricultural landscapes can provide. This new research project will identify optimal ¿whole farm¿ strategies that address opportunities and challenges associated with the sustainable integration of specialized crop, pasture, livestock, and bio-based energy enterprises to help producers reduce risks of economic loss, diversify income, and enhance environmental benefits. Objective 1 will determine component-, whole-farm-, and landscape-level impacts and optimal configurations for crop, pasture, grazed livestock, and agroforestry enterprises to increase producer income, profit, and ecosystem service values for lower Midwest region farms. Objective 2 will develop or adapt methods, models, and metrics that provide a full cost accounting at different scales to determine impacts from multi-use agricultural landscapes and be used to provide integrated solutions to economic and natural resource quality challenges for lower Midwest region farms.

Approach:
The best whole-farm economic opportunities will be identified for returning a greater portion of food system income to producers while they are financially rewarded for the ecosystem services provided by multi-use agricultural landscapes. Emphasis is placed on the sustainable integration of specialized crop, livestock, and bio-based energy enterprises into robust whole-farm systems to help producers reduce risks of economic loss, diversify income, and enhance environmental benefits. Interdisciplinary research approaches will be used to determine how different production and conservation practices affect the delivery, fate and transport of nutrients and pathogens to surface and ground waters; develop tools to quantify the ecosystem service values received from crop, pasture, and agroforestry components in diverse multifunctional landscapes; determine how to best incorporate bio-based energy production into farms and rural communities without disrupting agricultural diversity or compromising natural resource quality; and prescribe likely optimal alternatives based on real-life data through multiple objective optimizations for economics, environmental impact, and overall sustainability of different kinds of production systems and marketing chain options. This research will provide information and recommendations to assist farmers, land use planners, policy makers, and public interest groups in developing science-based recommendations that sustain economic viability and enhance natural resource quality of farms in the lower Midwest region.