Announcement: C4E Affiliate Receives Support for 2 New Projects
July 21, 2020
Linda Prokopy, Professor of FNR and long-time affiliate of the Center for the Environment, has long worked on issues relating to soil and water health, particularly in regions of the Midwest. Recently, she and her team have also spent time looking at what motivates the adoption and continued use of agricultural conservation practices, like the use of cover crops and nutrient stabilizers, on both farmer-owned and rented lands. In June 2020, Prokopy received support for two new projects relating to these topics.
For the first project, “Understanding of Persistence of Cover Crop Use: Lower Wabash,” Prokopy is working with the Walton Family Foundation, a family-led foundation that has a focus on protecting oceans and rivers and the livelihoods they support, for the benefit of people and the environment. The project focuses on examining the long-term impact of conservation programs on continued adoption through engagement with producers in the Big Pine watershed, located in western-central Indiana and crossing Benton, White, Warren and Tippecanoe counties. This watershed had previously been a site where corporate, government and Purdue University Extension partners provided financial incentives to farmers to adopt practices that would lead to improved water quality. This current project follows up with producers involved in this project to specifically answer questions including: “What factors contribute to continued use of cover crops post-program?” and “What differentiates producers who continue using cover crops from those who discontinue.”
For her second project, Prokopy and her team will lead a social science assessment of the obstacles and opportunities for meeting nutrient management goals that emerge from a larger project on nutrient management, part of a larger project supported by Natural Resources Conservation Service and done in partnership with Brookside Laboratories, a soil health testing service provider which is currently working with USDA-NRCS through an On-Farm Evaluation Partnership to implement enhanced efficiency fertilizer trials using new scientific protocol and an adaptive management approach. This project is taking place in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.