EQIP and CRP Save Soil on Iowa Farm

Conservation is the name of the game at Tony Allen's farm near Diagonal in Union County. Allen has several acres enrolled in the CRP and uses grass filter strips in his crop ground. He has also used Environmental Quality Incentives Program dollars on his Southwest Iowa farm. IFT photo by Jeff DeYoung.

DIAGONAL — The rough terrain of southern Union County suggests it was made with cattle in mind, but the rugged slopes and abundant waterways also suggest this land is an excellent candidate for soil erosion.

Tony Allen concedes he's seen some erosion over the years, but over the past 18 months, the Southwest Iowa farmer has done something about it.

Allen has taken advantage of at least two USDA conservation programs to make sure his land is there for his children and grandchildren.

"It was something we had always thought about, but these programs have allowed us to do it," he says.

Two creeks run through his farm, and Allen has planted grass buffer strips along much of the channels. The strips give him extra forage for his 140 cows in the fall, and Allen happily pays back some of the money he received from USDA.

He planted contour buffer strips through the 50 acres he plants to corn and soybeans. Allen has enrolled 29.3 acres in the Conservation Reserve Program.

With Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), he has built two ponds and turned a troublesome pasture in a rotational grazing system.

What some farmers spend years building, Allen has done in 18 months.

"We figured once we got started, we might as well get it done at once," he says.

Allen uses minimum tillage on his crop ground because he turns his cows loose on it after harvest. Several ancient terraces dot the landscape, but Allen says the grass strips have been just as effective.

Building the ponds gave him water sources for his cow herd. He also does some custom calving, and the rotational grazing system has helped him improve the quality of grass on all his pastures.

"We mow hay on most of them, and last year we had quite a bit of rain so the hay was excellent," Allen says. "We were pretty pleased with how it looked."

There is little doubt conservation programs have greatly reduced soil erosion.

An estimated 295 million tons of reduced erosion per year could be a result of using different conservation-compliance policies, according to a story by Roger Claassen in USDA's Economic Research Service's publication, "Amber Waves.''

Claassen also notes between 1982 and 1997, "excess erosion dropped sharply on these (highly erodible) farms, and the reduction in erosion appears to have been larger on farms receiving payments than on farms not receiving payments. . . .

"Overall, a significant share of erosion reduction between 1982 and 1997 is likely to have occurred on land directly subject to conservation-compliance requirements."

Claassen says some conservation compliance likely would have happened without the incentive programs, but adds "the compliance requirement, structured to focus on inexpensive practices, may have accelerated the adoption process on all types of land."

Farmers are taking advantage of these incentives, including newer programs, such as EQIP, says Jeff Zimprich, a soil conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Atlantic.

A variety of factors may have pushed some farmers into conservation programs. Zimprich says increased use of no-till, for example, may have been the result of farms getting larger and the need to spread available labor over more acres.

But, he adds farmers are becoming more aware of conservation programs, and says interest in EQIP is very strong.

"The demand for EQIP money has been very high in my counties in Southwest Iowa," Zimprich says.

"We have some counties with a backlog of requests because of the increased interest in the program."

He says the initial EQIP allocation in Iowa this year should be about $12 million.

"It's one of our most popular programs because of the cost-share incentive. A fair share of it goes to livestock operations, and we're doing a lot of work with grazing systems.

"We're building a lot of terraces, too, and last year we had money for ground and surface water programs so we could conserve as much as we could."

A large number of CRP contracts will come up for renewal in 2007.

Zimprich says this could be a major issue for USDA because some farmers may be tempted to take acres of the program and return the land to crop production.

"With the rental rate for cropland, it may be hard to resist," he says. "We'll have to see how that plays out."

One of the newer programs, the Conservation Security Program (CSP), will expand this year into other watersheds. Zimprich believes the CSP is the "conservation program of the future."

"We always heard from our really good conservation farmers that there was not a program for them. Well, this is the program because it offers some tremendous incentives," he says.

"Last year, we had some growing pains, but we did a tremendous amount of education to get these guys thinking about conservation. It's a really good program, and we hope more will take advantage of it."

Zimprich says the NRCS also offers a number of cost-share programs, as well as a newer program with low interest loans for participating farmers.

"If you are interested, there are a lot of really good programs out there," he says.

Allen is content with how his farm is set up. He says results were seen almost immediately in terms of pasture quality and cow herd production.

There is still some tinkering to do, but Allen is not planning any drastic changes on his farm.

"We might fool around with the rotational grazing a little, putting in electric fence so we can move the cows around a little more, but other than that, I'm happy with it," he says.

"We'd been thinking about doing something, and I'm glad we finally went ahead with it."

Story by Jeff DeYoung, Iowa Farmer Today.