Managing for Profit

Farmer conserves for bottom line and future generations

Marc Bertness makes it his mission to use conservation farming.  He’s not alone, and it is no big surprise to him that when he committed to using little or no tillage on his Northwest Iowa farm that he would save money.

“The first thing I noticed last fall was my fuel bill was considerably less,” Bertness told Brownfield Ag News.

Bertness, a cooperator in the National Corn Growers Association Soil Health Partnership, is among many farmers across the country implementing management practices that result in benefits that are environmental as well as economic.  He is showing his Sioux Rapids, Iowa, farm August 16 during one of many Soil Health Partnership field day events.

Bertness is philosophical when telling Brownfield the reasons he farms the way he does, of the responsibility he feels that goes beyond nurturing seeds and gathering harvests.

“We who are privileged to work the land should remember,” he said, “that we are only stewards of it for a short while.”

AUDIO: Marc Bertness (3 min. MP3)