Soli health practices can help Flip Your Soil from good to great. These practices are also part of the new Climate Smart Agriculture push to sequester carbon and lower greenhouse gases.
USDA recently announced nearly $3 billion in funding for climate smart agriculture projects, but this isn’t a new concept for many farmers, they’ve been climate smart for years. Nebraska Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) State Conservationist Robert Lawson says it’s just a new name for the many conservation practices growers are utilizing on their farms. “So, when we talk about climate smart ag, we talk about the practices we are implementing day in an day out. So whether that’s no-till, cover crops, crop rotation, nutrient management, those are some of the specific practices.”
The goal, he says, is to improve soil health and promote carbon sequestration. “Using no-till, cover crops that’s helping to build the organic matter over time and that is only helping improve the soil, reducing erosion and also improving water quality as well.”
Farmers are also using technology such as precision agriculture to better manage inputs and nutrients, which also improves soil health. “Whether that’s irrigation water management and nutrient management and variable rate technology,” according to Lawson.
These conservation practices also help farmers reduce the ever-rising cost of inputs on their farm. He says, “Oh absolutely it can help with the ledger sheet by reducing tillage practices over the field, by going no-till, reducing the amount of diesel that you need to buy for the year using cover crops to help with weed suppression so its not another pass over the operation.”
Lawson says many farmers integrated these practices into their operations, even before there was government or other incentives because they want their farms to be sustainable. “They’re the stewards of this land and the reason they are is because they know they want to, they need to keep it for future generations.”
And they want to leave the land better than they found it.
