Taking a Stake in Sustainability

A New Initiative Enables Cities and Companies to Pay Farmers for Positive Environmental Outcomes

By Carl Peterson | Photos by Joseph L. Murphy

Earthworms, everywhere. That’s one difference that Lance Lillibridge notices on his farm northwest of Cedar Rapids. He sees more and more of the creatures each year.

“It’s crazy how huge our earthworm population is getting,” he says. “Go scratch the dirt in our field, and I guarantee you’ll find a worm within seconds.”

Earthworms may not seem like a big deal to some, but to Lillibridge it’s a clear sign that the sustainable practices he and his wife Heidi have implemented on their 450 acres of soybeans and corn over the last several years are having a real impact. It shows him that the biology of his soil is growing stronger, and for Lillibridge, healthy soil is a healthy future.

Conservation is at the forefront of everything that Lance Lillibridge does on his farm. Earthworms are a clear sign of soil health.

He started worrying about soil erosion early in his two-decade career as a full-time farmer, when he saw an unsustainable situation developing across the farming landscape.

“You looked at the rates of soil erosion and thought, wow, these farms are disappearing right before our eyes. Something’s got to change,” he says.

Lillibridge started addressing the issue by altering how he tills his soil. This not only reduces erosion, but also keeps the soil structure healthier and prevents carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Then he began experimenting with cover crops. And he bought new equipment. His giant tractor now places nutrients and seeds sideby-side with incredible precision to disturb the ground as little as possible while also minimizing fuel and fertilizer use.

“We don’t manage acres anymore – we manage inches,” he says.

The cost – which can be extremely high – has prevented him and many other farmers from going even further with conservation practices that show real benefits. Now, a new venture called the Soil & Water Outcomes Fund is helping with this problem, paying farmers directly for the ecological services their farm practices produce.

It’s a new way of thinking about what farmers should get paid for – not only the crops they grow but also for the positive environmental impacts they contribute. And it could be a breakthrough for farmers at a time when they are seeking to find ways to shift to more sustainable methods while also facing a very difficult economic landscape in agriculture.

POOLING RESOURCES

The Soil & Water Outcomes Fund started with a simple premise: Help farmers and agriculture in general to be part of the solution to environmental challenges like climate change and water quality.

Farms can’t operate at a loss. So, sustainability solutions need to work financially for farmers to adopt them.

This is the puzzle that Adam Kiel, director of conservation and external programs at the Iowa Soybean Association, and Mark Lambert, director of agriculture at outcomes-based investment firm Quantified Ventures, set out to solve last year. Kiel was working with municipalities in Iowa looking to improve their water quality and reduce flood risks.

Adam Kiel visits with stakeholders during a field day.

One of the first partnerships they established was with Ryan Sirolli, director of row crop sustainability at Cargill, a food and agriculture company. The company has a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its global supply chain by 30% over the next decade. Sirolli was trying to find ways to equip farmers to reduce emissions, both to meet this target and as part of a broader Cargill effort to provide training and tools so farmers can keep their operations healthy and viable for the long term.

“We wanted to work in partnership because we know no one organization, community or farm could do it alone,” Kiel says. “It’s about sharing the cost and also sharing the benefits.”

The partners know that healthier soil can have a positive impact on both water quality and carbon in the atmosphere. Stacked together, these two benefits reinforce each other. What if they could also team up to pay farmers to achieve them?

Fast forward to this crop year, and the new fund does just that. Farmers receive between $30 and $50 per acre when they adopt new practices that are proven to impact soil, water and air in positive and measurable ways.

That’s a big financial boost, and it’s what attracted Lillibridge to the fund for its first year. In total, Iowa farmers enrolled 9,400 acres. But based on what the partners learn this year, they hope to expand to 100,000 or more acres across Iowa next year. And over time, Sirolli sees an opportunity to bring similar programs to farms all over the world.

“We want to put farmers and ranchers at the center of this, because if these solutions work for them, they’ll scale up on their own,” Sirolli says. “Things like the Soil & Water Outcomes Fund are really exciting for us at Cargill because they show how farmers have this unbelievable potential to contribute positively to some of humanity’s biggest challenges.”

As the fund grows, many farmers in Iowa who are familiar with sustainable practices or have used them on a limited basis will be able to increase conservation efforts across a larger share of their acres.

“We’ve given these farmers a market signal to expand the use of these practices,” Kiel says. “It is a good value, especially with the current economic environment.”

Lance Lillibridge pauses at a stream passing through his farm, which empties into the Cedar River.

FARMING FOR THE FUTURE

An important thing to understand about sustainable agricultural practices is they take time to make an impact.

“Soil health is a long-term investment,” Sirolli says.

In other words, all those earthworms didn’t show up on Lillibridge’s farm overnight. That’s why he is committed to sticking with sustainability over the long haul – both because it’s good for the planet and because it’s just good for business. Healthy soil is more resilient, produces more crops and provides a better economic return.

“When I look at my field, that’s my retirement. That’s my 401(k),” he says. “I’m taking the best care of it that I can because someday I’ll need it to take care of me.”

The Soil & Water Outcomes Fund will give him the financial boost to make sure he can farm the way he wants to, with the future in mind. Lillibridge also hopes the fund will raise public awareness about how agriculture is key to everyone’s lives.

“When folks sit down at the dinner table, they should think about where that meal came from and how the food was produced,” he says. “If we don’t do things sustainably, the meal might be cheap right now, but I’m not sure it’ll be around for our grandkids.”

For more information on the fund, visit www.theoutcomesfund.com.

Multiplying the Benefits

Farm activities can directly lead to environmental outcomes that are good for people and the planet. These are some of the activities that farmers are undertaking as part of their enrollment in the Soil &Water Outcomes Fund.

• Armoring the soil with cover crops and other plant matter

• Reducing tillage (turning over soil)

• Rotating among different crops more frequently

• Keeping living roots in the soil for more of the year with cover crops

• Integrating livestock into the system to graze and add manure

These practices create a rich soil full of microbes, nutrients and living matter that stores carbon, filters and retains water, and boosts plant growth.

To view the full spread, view this magazine in your internet browser on your phone, tablet or desktop. This story is funded by the soybean checkoff.