Special Report
Conservation farmers motivated by more than profit
Farmers contribute to sustainable production through conservation practices on their farms. The motivation to invest in and to implement those practices runs deeper than just profit.
Washington, Iowa farmer Rob Stout can easily put a dollar value on recycling manure from his hog finishing operation.
“We get probably about $25,000 worth of manure, just on the N, P and the K,” Stout told Brownfield Ag News during the Iowa Soybean Association Research Conference in Ames.
But that’s not primarily what motivates him to employ that practice and many others, including no-tilling since 1983 and cover crops, the planting of which he’s increased from 10 acres when he started, to 600 acres at last count.
“That’s kind of priceless to me,” he said.
The same can be said for Kellie Blair, who farms with her husband north of Ames, near Dayton, Iowa. She tells Brownfield they save money by minimizing what they till, but she can see that her four and five-year-old children have the spark in them to farm. That, she says, is motivation enough to practice conservation.
“That black soil is very important to us, because that’s how we make our livelihood,” said Blair at the conference, during an interview with Brownfield Ag News. “That’s our business in that soil, so we want to protect it, we want to build it, we want to maintain it and we want to keep it there for future generations.”
AUDIO: Kellie Blair (5 min. MP3)
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