Conservation programs were established in response to the challenges agriculture has faced since the Dust Bowl. The Soil Conservation Service was established in April 1935, in response to the devastating drought and wind soil erosion that happened because most of the grassland in the Great Plains was converted to row crops in the early 1800s.

Over time, the shift from the traditional family farm to a highly mechanized agriculture system with great intensification of farming input by introducing the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides happened during the Green Revolution. This transition of agriculture production from traditional farming to the modern agriculture system changed farmers’ approach from coupling potential soil productivity to soil natural fertility and soil organic matter, to the reliance on chemical fertilizers as essential sources of nutrients for managing yield expectations.

The expansion of commodity-based agriculture production led to the establishment of national-scale agricultural practices and policies designed to promote commodities and trade. While societal concerns of environmental degradation that included soil health, water quality, air quality and their importance to national economic well-being existed, these policies did not address the use of modern agricultural practices environmental impacts that included mechanization (i.e., tillage intensification), intensification of production, lack of crop diversification, and use of synthetic fertilizers and pest control measures, which contributed frequently to soil organic carbon loss, and a reduction in other ecosystem services.

This shift to a new agricultural production paradigm came with significant environmental costs to soil, water and air qualities. The use of fertilizers since 1960 has increased exponentially from 50 million tons to more than 200 million tons globally in 2019, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Attempts to reform the system

In an attempt to reduce the impact of modern large-scale agriculture systems here in the U.S., many conservation programs, over time since 1980, have been reformed to require participants in governmental programs to adopt certain conservation practices to reduce soil erosion, improve water quality, enhance soil health, and enhance carbon sequestration. However, conservation compliance roles in the U.S. that have included protections of highly erodible lands through Conservation Reserve Program and wetlands or riparian habitat protection programs, have required minimal measures to participate in direct payments. This led to concern about the effectiveness of conservation compliance and the perception these programs were not truly voluntary and it has undermined their support. The fixed-price support approach in these programs has been replaced by crop revenue insurance coverage based on expected market prices and working lands provisions that reward the use of conservation practices, which assume to provide ecosystem services.

Both cost-share and technical service programs encourage farmers’ adoption of conservation practices that increase soil carbon to improve soil health and other ecosystem services. However, the practices and measures in these programs and their effectiveness of producing certain ecosystem services are based on expectations and assumptions without direct measurements and verifications of actual delivery of the services outlined in the contract, such as the carbon sequestration rate and other environmental outcomes.

Certain agriculture policies and reforms have been enacted in other countries to address similar concerns to manage agricultural commodities production, associated cost and societal environmental concerns over harms caused by intensive agriculture practices because of a lack of agricultural commodity programs linked to environmental outcomes. Through such reforms, farmers who enroll in governmental programs are required to provide documented environmental outcomes through cross-compliance of practices. This cross-compliance establishes the basis for payments when farmers agree to certain environmental outcomes which exceed the mandatory requirements. This mechanism will ensure compliance with environmental rules and delivery of outcomes of maintaining working land in sustainable agricultural and environmental conditions, which may include:

New approach

It is imperative to rethink the current conservation programs to have long-term visions of coupling sustainable commodity production and environmental resiliency that will meet the current challenges presented by climate change: environmentally centered practices that enhance productivity and soil health through integrated systems approaches, coupling crop and livestock production with diversified cropping systems. These systems should be built on regenerative agriculture principles to achieve food security and combat climate change.

Efforts to combine private and public partnerships, as currently explored through the carbon market, can present a new model for reimagining conservation-centered practices involving the farmer as the central player in adopting practices to not only focus on commodity production, but also be central to mitigating climate challenges. Such efforts are similar to the strategy of a 0.4% increase in soil carbon initiative articulated during the climate Paris Agreement of 2015. This is simple to achieve and is appealing to farmers as they consider soil organic matter a major factor in land valuation and productivity, as demonstrated in the Midwest — and in Iowa, in particular — by using the corn suitability rating value as a marker for soil productivity.

The current efforts in the U.S. and Australia with using the private-public partnership approach in climate-smart agriculture practices as potential climate change solutions in managed agricultural and natural systems for atmospheric carbon removal and carbon sequestration is very promising. This can ultimately contribute to insularly soil and ecosystem services, such as soil carbon sequestration, improved soil biodiversity, soil health, etc. Such efforts have currently led to great advances and collaboration among interested parties from field to institutions and scientists to industry in advancing conservation practices to greater levels to address climate challenges.

At this point, governmental programs can be the catalyst to fill the current gaps and to encourage the advancement of private-public partnerships to secure the environmental benefits society is demanding. For these efforts to succeed, private markets must provide credible mechanisms to monitor, report and verify outcomes. These outcomes must be linked to conservation practices, such as no-till, cover crops, diversified cropping systems and livestock integration as effective tools in achieving conservation program objectives through measurable increases in soil carbon, reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, reduction in soil erosion, and improvement in water quality.

Al-Kaisi is a professor emeritus of soil physics (soil management and environment) in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University.