The Back 40

A private-public partnership is working to improve rice productivity, as well as enhance waterbird habitat in California. Montna Farms, owned by Al and Gail Montna enrolled in the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Waterbird Habitat Enhancement Program (WHEP), which pays incentives to landowners who implement pro-wildlife habitat practices on their land. The rice belt, where Montna Farms [...]

The Farm Bill we had hoped Congress would act on last year is still pending. One of the conservation issues under discussion has been conservation compliance – the requirement that farmers receiving farm program payments maintain a conservation plan to limit damage to highly erodible land and wetlands. Some have argued that, with direct farm [...]

In a recent study, researchers from South Dakota State University have documented a sodbusting trend in the Central Plains states. Due largely to rising commodity prices, the Western Corn Belt has lost  1.3 million acres of grassland over the past 5 years, which is a rate that hasn’t been seen since the 1930′s. The authors found [...]

By Joseph Britt, Sand County Foundation Phosphorus is the agricultural pollutant of greatest concern in Wisconsin.  A powerful stimulant of algae growth in freshwater ecosystems, phosphorus is used in large quantities by a number of industries in Wisconsin, particularly as fertilizer.  Keeping phosphorus out of the water is a key environmental policy challenge for Wisconsin [...]

By Joseph Britt For the last 40 years, communities around the United States have struggled with a water quality problem that is also a legal problem:  municipal sewerage district ratepayers are required by the Clean Water Act to pay for removing phosphorus from wastewater but the much of the phosphorus comes from sources that aren’t [...]

In the first of several pending state level cases, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that community regulations of large-scale farms cannot be stricter than state-level laws. The case is the result of a small community, which alleged that a large farm, with more than 1,000 cows, was polluting the town’s water supply, so the community [...]