How Bazile Farmers Use Conservation To Tackle Nitrates And Protect Nebraska Groundwater
Building trust in food begins with empowering farmers through one of the largest and most diverse conservation- and sustainability-focused public-private partnerships in our nation’s history: America’s Conservation Ag Movement. To find the latest news and resources related to the Movement, visit AgWeb.com/ACAM.
The Ogallala Aquifer is one of the world’s largest freshwater resources. It’s been described as an underground spongelike lake that covers portions of states from North Dakota to Texas. It contains as much water as Lake Huron, provides an estimated $25 billion of agricultural products and supplies approximately 1.8 million people with drinking water daily.
In northeastern Nebraska, farmers in the Bazile Groundwater Management Area who rely on this precious resource know its value. Yet conservationists caution that without proactive attention to local water-quality challenges such as nitrate contamination, the Ogallala—the singular water source for producers and rural communities in the region—is at risk.
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The Challenge
The Bazile encompasses 756 square miles of land across Antelope, Knox and Pierce counties. It’s home to 10 communities and 7,000 residents.
“The Bazile is characterized mostly by sandy soils and intensive crop production,” explains Connor Baldwin, project coordinator for the Bazile, who serves with the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resource District. Unique to Nebraska, the district is among 23 such local units of government responsible for stewarding water, forests and other natural resources.
Those factors, in combination with a shallow water table in which 50% of available water is less than 100 ft. from the surface, have led to leaching issues within the Bazile. The permeability of the Bazile’s soils doesn’t allow excess nitrogen to stay near the root zone once a crop is harvested, especially when no living roots remain in the soil’s surface. For six to seven months out of the year, it’s common for soils in the area to go without any significant live organic matter taking up and using surplus nitrogen.
Legacy nutrients add another layer of complexity.
“The nitrate levels we’re seeing today aren’t the results of yesterday’s activities, nor will our efforts today make a difference tomorrow,” explains Austin Baldwin, resource conservationist with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service in Nebraska, and brother to Connor. “Nitrogen, in average soils, can travel through the soil at a rate of around 12” per year. The rate of travel within most soils of the Bazile is closer to 30” to 48” pear year. Nitrates entering the groundwater right now are from nitrogen applications years to even decades ago.”
To alleviate those challenges, state and federal agencies have been working with farmers to encourage adoption of production practices that can help mitigate the risk of leaching. Those who have tried to lose weight understand the premise: You might not notice a difference from one day to the next, but if you remain consistent with your diet and exercise, you’ll begin to see improvements.
Solutions
The silver lining is that resource concerns facing the Bazile are complex but not unsolvable. “We’re not suggesting we decrease corn and soybean production in the area, and the last thing anyone wants is for mandatory, strict regulations to come into play to address the issue,” points out Austin Baldwin of NRCS. “There are a lot of procedures that can be implemented to mitigate and even decrease nitrate accumulation, and the most exciting news is that many of these efforts can have a positive impact on a farmer’s bottom line.”
That’s especially true when farmers move toward adoption of a suite of practices, provided it’s appropriate for their operation, Baldwin says. Those practices are:
• Spoon feed nitrogen when and where crops need it. Do not apply more than crops need, either at one time or over the crop’s lifetime.
• When nitrogen cannot be spoon fed, use nitrogen stabilizers to slow the release of nitrogen into the soil. Stabilizers keep applied nitrogen in a plant-usable form that is less likely to leach.
• Use good irrigation management to avoid over-application of water, which forces excess nitrogen into the ground further and faster.
• Implement soil health practices that build up soil organic matter and allow topsoil to hold more water and more nutrients, preventing them from leaching into subsoils. These practices include cover crops, which can improve organic matter, create revenue streams such as through livestock grazing, and limit the need for synthetic fertilizer; conservation tillage or no-till; and diverse crop rotation such as with small grains, which can help lower farm labor and equipment needs and input costs.
Considerations
Economics is the primary—but not the exclusive—factor for many local farmers evaluating how to improve their resource stewardship.
“It really comes down to ‘Will this pay off?’,” explains Jeremy Milander, Bazile educator with University of Nebraska Extension. “Especially in times when narrowing margins in the farming business make turning a profit more difficult, people aren’t looking to drastically change up their approaches. Many of these practices often require investing in new equipment, and there’s uncertainty that the investment in cover crop seed, different equipment or soil testing will pay off in the long run.”
A cooperative approach to water-quality conversations is often the most productive.
“We want involvement and uptake of practices to be completely voluntary by farmers and landowners of the area” says Connor Baldwin of the local Natural Resource District. “Farmers are the original stewards of the land. We work with farmers daily who are as invested in achieving a solution to this issue as anyone. After all, it’s their own and their family’s drinking water and health we’re talking about here.”
Insights From Local Farmers
Nebraska producer Debbie Borg and her husband, Terry, produce row crops and poultry just outside the Bazile, and conservation plays an integral role on their operation.
“We’ve been experimenting with cover crops for about eight years,” Borg says. “We know that when utilized appropriately, they often result in decreased need for supplemental nitrogen, and they add an opportunity for our son to provide forage for his growing cattle herd.”
Yet for Bazile-area farmers just getting started with conservation, she advises first exploring ways to reduce tillage. “We started no-tilling over 30 years ago with the purpose of decreasing fuel costs and reducing labor needs. Although the first three to five years can make sticking with it tough because your fields don’t look like you’re accustomed to, you’ve got to stick with it,” Borg shares. “We would never consider going back. If you appreciate a lower fuel bill and want to improve your soil health, reduced tillage practices can’t be underestimated. It’s time to start thinking about conservation not just as resource conservation but conservation of a dollar.”
Along with other Bazile-area farmers and conservation experts, Borg recently spoke about her experiences with conservation during a Farm Journal webinar titled “Farming for the Future, Fostering Resiliency”. (Watch the complete webinar on this page.) It addresses several key soil health practices and principles that can help producers.
Borg is a local Conservation Steward in the Bazile helping farmers both get credit for existing stewardship practices and evaluate the next steps they can be taking. Conservation Stewards are part of America’s Conservation Ag Movement. The Movement brings farmers and the sustainability community together around the future of farming, by bringing profitable, planet-friendly farming practices into the mainstream. It connects the dots, giving farmers a platform to share their journey, meet other farmers on the same path, and access the resources they need to undertake change. The Movement is organized by Trust In Food, a Farm Journal initiative, in partnership with the Farm Journal Foundation. Financial and technical support is provided by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service and leading agribusinesses, food companies and nonprofit organizations.
Other farmers in the region are seeing the value of investing in conservation as a business strategy.
“I think there are many farmers out there who haven’t experienced discussions about conservation, sustainability or soil health from an economics perspective,” says Justin Doerr, an organic grain, grass-fed sheep, and heritage pork producer near Plainview, Neb. “Many impactful conservation efforts can be attributed to input-cost savings with the opportunity to improve a farm’s bottom line. On our farm, our main goal is to cut down on the number of inputs we have to buy. Incorporating cover crops and livestock into the operation has allowed for us to reduce fertility inputs and decrease some weed control measures.”
What Farmers Can Do Next
To learn more about evaluating your conservation farming practices, reach out to Connor Baldwin at cbaldwin@lenrd.org or visit the Natural Resource District’s Bazile website for information about local demonstration sites and events.
To discover how you can join America’s Conservation Ag Movement, email Cody Dvorak at conservationag@farmjournal.com. Then visit AgWeb.com/ACAM for additional information, videos and resources.
You can also dive deeper to learn more about the Bazile by viewing this report published by the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy.
ABOUT OUR GUEST EXPERT
Dr. Charles Shapiro, Emeritus Professor of Agronomy and Horticulture, University of Nebraska
ABOUT OUR CONSERVATION STEWARDS
Debbie Borg, Borg Family Farms near Allen, Neb.
Brian Doerr, farming northeast of Plainview, Neb.
