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ISA program will compensate farmers for conservation practices

Adam Kiel with the Iowa Soybean Association

The Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) has developed a program to compensate farmers for their conservation efforts.

ISA director of conservation Adam Kiel says the program will provide a link between farmers who are using conservation practices and “off-farm beneficiaries” of those conservation efforts, such as municipalities.

“We are working with municipalities that are downstream of these farmers to price the water outcomes—specifically nitrogen and phosphorus improvements in water,” Kiel says. “They find value in those reductions.”

Kiel says they’re also working with a large agribusiness supply chain company that has sustainability goals related to carbon and greenhouse gases.

“They are willing to buy the carbon that we’re sequestering on farms. They see that as beneficial to their business—and they see value in supporting farmers and conservation as well.”

ISA plans to have eight to ten-thousand acres enrolled in the pilot program, with plans to take it statewide in coming years.

Brownfield interviewed Kiel at an ISA Research Forum in Red Oak, Iowa.

AUDIO: Adam Kiel

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