The final week of the quarter, and of my time as an Evergreen student, is here. It feels a little unbelievable and very bittersweet. Working on my final academic statement this quarter has been an interesting process, especially trying to distill my educational journey of the last three years down to a maximum of 750 words. This week I had say goodbye to everyone at TCD, but I’m leaving full of gratitude for the experience I’ve gotten and for the wonderful people I’ve met.
One of the questions I started the quarter with was: How effective are voluntary stewardship programs in agricultural conservation versus regulatory compliance programs? I’m ending the quarter with an infuriating answer: it depends. Regional factors seem to particularly determine the need for regulation enforcement. Many of the books I’ve been reading focus on the Upper Midwest, where voluntary stewardship programs often struggle to make a wider impact. Staffing and culture in local agencies, the primary crops cultivated, the economic landscape, and regional policies all make the answers to my question incredibly different in Washington and in Iowa, for example. Our region is fortunate to have relatively strong environmental policies that protect waterways, and its climate is more conducive to specialty crops rather than commodities (as I discussed last week, specialty crops receive minimal, if any, subsidies). In Thurston County, conservation incentives for producers seem to work quite well. I would be interested to look at other regions’ statistics for the number of applicants for conservations easements and stewardship plans, the number of completed projects, and the number waitlisted.
I’ve found myself continually comparing my home state (Washington) to my partner’s home state (Iowa) over the course of this capstone project, and it’s driven home the lesson about how important it is to consider the broader contexts in which our options and decisions exist. One podcast that I’ve enjoyed over the last few months that ties together some of my interests (water, conservation, agriculture, policy) is We All Want Clean Water, hosted by an economist and two environmental engineers, all from the University of Iowa. It’s been an insightful source for learning about a very different agricultural conservation landscape and an urgent need to reform their current approaches to agency-farmer relationships.
The USDA has a problem, in that the agency in charge of enticing farmers to adopt conservation practices is also the agency that punishes them for not implementing the practices. It doesn’t want to be the one to fine them, because that makes positive relationships harder… There should be a separate agency, a watchdog agency, that uses remote sensing and other data to monitor.
Silvia Secchi, University of Iowa Associate Professor, in a July 2021 interview with Environmental Working Group
While preparing my final presentation this week, I reflected on what my overall takeaways were from my internship and related readings. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is the importance of trusting, reciprocal relationships to successful land stewardship partnerships. A common theme has been how hard TCD staff works to build positive connections and earn trust with local producers, and private landowners in general. An ethnographic study of a cross-organizational partnership in the UK called Farm Herefordshire (Vetter, 2022) details how the members of the newly forming partnership worked carefully to build a collective identity, even deliberately designing their logo to demonstrate “Farm Herefordshire has no baggage”. They formed to tackle the local issue of agricultural diffuse pollution, hoping to bring non-regulatory guidance and advice to farmers without politicization or conflicting initiatives, and adopted the slogan “For profitable farming, healthy soils and clean water”. In 2015, 44 out of 50 water bodies in the county of Herefordshire were designated to be in moderate, poor, or bad status from elevated nutrient and/or sediment loading. While wastewater treatment plants were identified as major point source polluters, phosphate losses from farmland were declared to be equal contributers to the issue by the Environment Agency and Natural England. Farm Herefordshire cleverly built trust with farmers by building on shared agriculture heritage and belonging, rather than focusing on environmentalist issues or the aims of particular member organizations.
This implies that identities also need—and indeed begin—to change on the organizational level of the involved partners and not only on the farm level itself. This commitment affords that one-sided interests necessarily have to step back behind the shared objective, which is obviously not easily achieved. However, in return this unity holds the potential to bridge the fragmentation of mitigation advice and helps to strengthen “the credibility of the message content”, which remains a major challenge within a sector that tends to downplay its negative environmental impact in general, and particularly with respect to water resources.
Thus, what might appear at first as a potential de-politicisation of the problem matter, is actually far from it. The premises of neutrality and unity rather constitute a pragmatic attempt to make headway in a field that has traditionally been much more divided and resistant to change—not least due to competing demands and interests.
Vetter, 2022, p. 14
Hosting events like “farm walks” to show real-life demonstrations of sustainable land stewardship became a key element of Farm Herefordshire’s strategy. One example of this “farmer-led approach to knowledge transfer with expert-advice from the involved organizations” Vetter’s paper in reminded me of the Plant ID Pasture Walk. A farm walk where participants were invited to directly engage with the living soil by digging a hole in the ground, feeling the soil structure, and counting the worms, embodying the host site’s sustainable farming practices through a tactile encounter. In our Plant ID Pasture Walk, we were invited to pick blades of grass or a small plant spring from the different species we were identifying, and not just look at but run our fingers over the key identifying features. Those who were more hesitant were offered foliage to handle anyways by another nearby participant, and it was easy to see that the simple act of feeling the plants made everyone feel more engaged and interested.
Reading this study in general reflected strongly upon my observations while working at TCD, especially the amazing ability to reach even those who may not have sought out their services to begin with, with a “soft, non-confrontative and pragmatic approach”. Thurston County is in the unique position of being largely rural, with about 76,000 acres of farmland and a diversity of agricultural operations, but also being home to Washington state’s capital city and its rapidly expanding urban growth area. The Thurston Climate Mitigation Plan, completed in December 2020, identifies environmentally healthy stewardship and preservation of our agricultural lands as a key element to regional climate action and mitigation, so these lessons are especially poignant and urgent.
Building a partnership, agreeing on its scope, its key messages and actions requires a lot of time for meetings, discussions, and consensus building. Diplomacy is key here, but this is fraught with compromises which often refect the lowest common denominator. Nevertheless, these laborious and long-winded processes which are inherent to partnership working allow agenda-setters to make their mark on the partnership and by doing so test new and potentially more progressive common ground. These mundanities of partnership working rarely enter the limelight of research studies, but as this paper has shown they are essential to the functioning of such initiatives.
Vetter, 2022, p. 21
Tuesday 5/31
After a long weekend celebrating my 30th birthday, I drove out to Tenino for my last TCD staff meeting. One of the staff was kind enough to host the meeting potluck-style at her beautiful home, and we spent about an hour before the actual meeting helping to weed the native plants hedgerow she planted last summer. I’m glad I got the chance to enjoy some delicious food on a sunny day with the entire staff and say a proper and grateful goodbye to everyone at once.
Wednesday 6/1
Today was my final day in the TCD office, and it was mostly focused on making sure everything I worked on was saved in shared folders or accounts, and finishing up a rough outline for an alternate website map. Nora encouraged me to work on my final presentation as well if I needed, especially since there wasn’t much left for me to do without just starting another project. It really sank in while I was working on my presentation PowerPoint slides how much I’ll miss working with Nora and Kiana especially, and the overall work that I’ve been doing. When I decided to go back to school in 2019, I had the goal of working in an environmentally-focused job that was roughly equally split between office and outdoors work, so this has been a very ideal working experience. I appreciate how different almost every day was, at least since I interned during the busiest season of the year, and how much flexibility I was given to support different projects.
As I was mapping out the website, I found some helpful resource links for producers that discuss the 2018 Farm Bill, so I took a little time to read up on it. Although I read The Farm Bill: A Citizen’s Guide last week, it didn’t include the 2018 Farm Bill, which is set to expire on September 30, 2023. Next year, a new Farm Bill will be reauthorized, and I hope it becomes the first to finally address climate mitigation. From my extra assorted reading today, I’ll leave some interesting things I found here.
2018 Farm Bill provisions of particular interest to me:
- Beginning and Socially Disadvantaged Farmers –
- Mandatory permanent funding for Farming Opportunity Training and Outreach that provides needed support for beginning and socially disadvantaged (SD) farmers
- Expanded access to crop insurance and other risk management options
- All beginning and SD farmers enrolling in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) can receive up to 50 percent of their cost-share payment up-front
- Increased funding for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Transition Incentives Program, with dedicated outreach to connect retiring farmers with beginning farmers, veterans, and farmers of color
- Expands eligibility to all CRP contract holders, not just retiring farmers
- New data initiative on Land Access and Farmland Ownership to ensure open access to important trend data
- (This fits precisely into my niche of interests)
- Creation of Beginning Farmer Coordinator positions at USDA and state agriculture departments
- Reauthorizes, but provides no funding for Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Accounts, which was a program first “created” in 2008, but has not yet received any funding to actually launch
- No renewal of mandatory funding for the Rural Microentrepreneur Assistance Program
- Conservation –
- A House proposal to outright eliminate the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) did not pass, but long term funding was slashed by $5 million
- Authorized CSP payment for financial and technical assistance to support developing comprehensive conservation plans
- Authorized CSP “organic initiative”
- Established a Clean Lakes, Estuaries, and Rivers (CLEAR) Initiative within the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
- Increased CRP Grassland Initiative to 2 million acres by 2023
- However, funding will end up being taken out of Conservation Title when it would be more appropriately taken out of the Commodities Title
- No reforms to limit EQIP funding to new and expanding CAFOs
- Fails to include a provision that would authorize and fund USDA research into conservation outcomes from conservation programs
I’ve been more curious lately about the relationships between climate mitigation and U.S. agriculture, so I checked out the Environmental Working Group’s website, as they were cited frequently in both Farm and Other F Words and The Farm Bill: A Citizen’s Guide. I found this map based on an EWG analysis of state bonus payments for USDA high priority stewardship practices (HPP) for greenhouse gas reduction, and thought I’d include it here since Washington, somewhat comically, was the only state ranking in both “climate smart” and “climate dumb” practice categories.
I looked at the analysis (which is based on actual data from 2020 and 2021) and while Washington didn’t offer these HPP bonus payments in 2020, in 2021 they offered 90% cost coverage for any EQIP participants. The HPP selected for funding by our state include cover cropping, field borders, riparian forest buffers, wildlife habitat planting, tree/shrub establishment, no-till management, and waste storage facilities. That last one on the list is troubling for reasons outlined in last week’s post – building new animal waste storage facilities or expanding old ones are not necessarily the best use of money meant for conservation projects. Other states that chose to offer bonus payments for waste storage facilities are: Oklahoma, Alaska, Connecticut, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
I would be interested to see what kinds of projects this money actually goes to in Washington state, because I have seen a good stewardship use of waste storage facilities at the goat farm I visited during Week 2. In that case, a manure storage facility was built mainly to manage animal waste that collected during the winter, the only season when the goats were not on pasture. The barns are at the top of a relatively steep hill with a wetland area at the bottom, and the manure storage area is designed to filter any excess nutrients before they contaminate water at the bottom of the hill. This is very different than the horrendous manure lagoons at CAFOs, or facilities for much larger, more conventional animal operations that may not be constructing with water quality protection and wildlife conservation in mind, like the owner of Mt. Capra.
A final note- as I was working, I saw the USDA’s hours-old press release announcing specifics of their “Food System Transformation” framework. Breaking down their initiatives into four areas, it looks like urban agriculture, local food systems, increasing equity, and reducing climate impact are major focuses of this transformation plan. It’s well worth reading the details of the relatively brief press release, keeping an eye on the USDA’s progress, and getting involved now as a consumer and citizen to make sure that the 2023 Farm Bill will include the reforms and funding necessary to put these noble goals into swift action. Many of you reading this are already farmers, have the goal of becoming a farmer, or work directly with farmers. In that case, take direct advantage of these programs to help grow farms sustainably and wisely, and strength our food systems for the greater public good.
Thursday 6/2
Today I gave a final project presentation alongside El, the other Food & Ag Capstone Projects student sponsored by Sarah this quarter, and Carli, a student in the Taste program. It was wonderful to meet new friends, share some delicious snacks from the class’s final tasting lab, and learn about what other students have been working on this quarter. When I mentioned to Nora and Kiana earlier this week that I would be presenting my project in-person, they asked when and where because they wanted to go. Sure enough, they showed up to see my presentation. I told my roommate Lou on Wednesday night about the presentation, and they also showed up! It was very encouraging and humbling to have them there supporting me and my work.
I included a PDF of my presentation PowerPoint slides below:
And with that, it’s the end of my internship, my capstone project, the quarter, and my bachelor of science and arts degree. Once I make it through evals and finish my final academic statement, it will really be the end, but I’m incredibly grateful I got to finish my very strange educational journey on such a high note. The exact steps of my path forward are uncertain, but I know which direction I want to go. I’m excited for whatever happens next.
Bibliography
2018 Farm Bill Drilldown: Beginning and Socially Disadvantaged Farmers. (2019, January 3). National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/2018-farm-bill-drilldown-beginning-farmers/
2018 Farm Bill Drilldown: Conservation. (2019, January 3). National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/2018-farm-bill-drilldown-conservation/
2018 Farm Bill Programs. (2020, August 5). Thurston Conservation District. https://www.thurstoncd.com/education/resources/2016-farm-bill-programs/
Carr, D. (2021, July 14). Interview: Lack of ‘conservation compliance’ highlights need for stricter federal oversight. Environmental Working Group. https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/interview-lack-conservation-compliance-highlights-need-stricter-federal
Faber, S., & Hayes, J. (2022, May 31). Few states are prioritizing climate with USDA incentive bonus program. Environmental Working Group. https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/05/few-states-are-prioritizing-climate-usda-incentive-bonus-program-0
Farm Service Agency. (2019). The 2018 Farm Bill – What Is New and What Has Changed. U.S. Department of Agriculture. https://www.farmers.gov/sites/default/files/documents/FSA-FarmBill2018_WhatsChangedExpanded-19.pdf
Farmers’ Guide to Farm Bill Programs. (2019, July). U.S. Department of Agriculture. https://www.farmers.gov/sites/default/files/documents/FarmBill-2018-Brochure-11×17.pdf
Secchi, S., Jones, C., & Cwiertny, D. (Hosts). (2022, May 23). The solution episode (No. 17). [Audio podcast episode]. In We All Want Clean H2O. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-solution-episode/id1590059366?i=1000563335107
U.S. Department of Agriculture. (2022, June 1). USDA Announces Framework for Shoring Up the Food Supply Chain and Transforming the Food System to Be Fairer, More Competitive, More Resilient [Press release]. https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2022/06/01/usda-announces-framework-shoring-food-supply-chain-and-transforming
Vetter, T. (2022). Co-producing better land management? An ethnographic study of partnership working in the context of agricultural diffuse pollution. Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41130-022-00170-6
