Karen Chapman: EDF Voices

For a month now, South Florida Atlantic beaches have been blanketed by a sickly green, toxic algae sludge that has kept tourists away and businesses reeling.

Florida has a bigger headache this summer than most states, but algae blooms are hardly unique.

Last week, more than 100 people were sickened by toxic algae in a Utah lake fed by agricultural runoff and treated sewage water. Algae-soiled beaches are a perennial health threat in China and the Baltic region. And just two summers ago, an outbreak in Lake Erie forced the City of Toledo to ban city water for nearly half a million residents.

We know that climate change is further exacerbating our algae problem – but also that there are ways to reduce the runoff that causes water quality issues and kills marine life, year after year.

Algae blooms can be minimized and maybe even prevented if we scale up existing efforts to improve fertilizer use and soil health management – practices that can also save farmers money and boost their yields.

Two efforts to curb runoff ready to scale

Two initiatives and private-sector partnerships are making significant headway today. If these efforts are replicated at scale, they could have a national – and even international – impact.

Thanks, in large part, to Walmart’s demand for more sustainable grains, food companies such as Campbell’s Soup, Unilever, Smithfield Foods and Kellogg’s are helping the farmers in their supply chain to reduce fertilizer runoff through a rapidly growing program called SUSTAIN.

Spearheaded by the ag retail cooperative United Suppliers, the plan is to have 10 million acres of farmland using best practices for fertilizer management and soil health by 2020.

Precision agriculture tools can help farmers meet the growing demand for sustainably grown grains, but it’s difficult to tell which tools perform as advertised. That’s why we developed NutrientStar, an independent program that assesses the fertilizer efficiency claims of products on the market. 

What will it take?

Supply chains are a powerful tool for igniting change. Companies can signal that fertilizer efficiency and good soil management are not just good for the environment, but also for improving water quality, protecting aquatic species and helping a farmer’s yields and bottom line.

But to get a handle on our growing algae problem in the United States and overseas, there is no one silver bullet.

We need more food companies to embrace sustainable sourcing, ag retailers to replicate the SUSTAIN model in order to reach millions of growers, and farmers to use NutrientStar to understand how tools perform in the field. Agricultural policies must also align with, and accelerate, adoption of conservation best practices.

To turn these initiatives into tangible environmental improvements, we must work with and not against farmers and agribusiness. The people who feed our rapidly growing population – and the companies that support them – are, and must be, our most important allies.

3 reasons sustainable agriculture is gaining ground

This post was first published on EDF’s Growing Returns.

It’s been one year since a massive algae bloom in Lake Erie contaminated the drinking water of some 500,000 Ohio residents.

Since that time, we’ve seen an increase in legislative actions and governmental commitments to reduce fertilizer runoff. Still, the harmful algae that showed up last summer has bloomed again, with this year’s event on track to be even worse than in 2014 – also as the level of toxic algae may fluctuate from one day to the next.

Catastrophic spring and early summer rains waterlogged farm fields in Ohio and Indiana and caused widespread flooding, sending untold quantities of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers into Lake Erie.

Of course, the algae problem was decades in the making and will likely take decades to reverse. Passing legislation does not lead to immediate improvement – and, as always, legislation is only one ingredient in the soup.

An approach that gives farmers  means to reduce the runoff that causes the algae bloom – and support from people they trust – are key to bringing lasting relief to Lake Erie and communities in the region.

A new way to help farms and environment

Farmers need more support and guidance to be able to make changes on their lands. And they need to know that these practices won’t reduce their yields.

That’s why a growing number of farmers are now tapping into SUSTAIN™, a platform that offers practical help. It was created by United Suppliers, a cooperative of 560 locally owned agricultural retailers with some 2,500 locations nationwide, and in coordination with Environmental Defense Fund.

United Suppliers provides agricultural retailers with SUSTAIN training on the best tools and practices for reducing runoff and increasing soil health – but it also focuses on maintaining productivity. The platform reaches farmers through their trusted United Suppliers ag retail advisors, field staff who consult with farmers on everything from crop protection and seeds to nutrients, and, now, also common-sense tools that help them manage fertilizers more sustainably.

That makes it a very logical and effective way to get the conservation messages and nutrient management tools out there much more broadly. It’s an opportunity to make lasting change.

Farmers who visit authorized SUSTAIN retail locations get the latest available advice on how to make sustainability an everyday practice. And they have access to proven, field-tested products and techniques to improve nutrient use efficiency and soil health – and protect their yields.

By the end of 2014, more than 100 sales employees were authorized as SUSTAIN advisors and another 100 will be authorized by the end of 2015 across Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio.

United Suppliers goal: To have 10 million acres enrolled in the program by 2020.

Lake Erie’s recovery will take time, of course. But we’re looking at a solution that may go farther than we can even imagine today.

The recent drinking water crisis in Toledo was a sober reminder that we need better solutions to address runoff from farms and urban areas.

The crisis resulted when algae containing cyanobacteria – which can be toxic to animals and humans - surrounded Toledo’s water intake in Lake Erie. The toxin can form when large amounts of fertilizers and sewage from farms and urban areas run off the land and end up in waterways.

The problem is not unique to Toledo. Inland lakes across the United States have seen a rise in phosphorus-driven algae blooms in recent decades. Where these lakes supply drinking water for communities, similar scenarios could unfold.

Online platform helps farmers share best practices

In my job at Environmental Defense Fund, I’ve partnered with farmers in Ohio for many years to increase agricultural productivity while reducing nutrient losses to water and air.

Together, we’ve developed platforms such as the Adapt Network  that help farmers test nutrient rates and improve time and placement of nitrogen and phosphorus. It also helps them promote soil health initiatives and strategic placement of landscape filters such as buffers and wetlands that keep nutrients from seeping into lakes and streams.

Farms in the Midwest managed to cut fertilizer loss by an average of 25 percent. 

Improving soil health increases its ability to process the nutrients that are applied. It means the crop is better able to use the fertilizers that were spread on the fields and that less is lost.

Another way to improve nutrient use efficiency is to time the applications of fertilizers when they can best be used by the crop – and to avoid the application of fertilizers prior to a rain or snowmelt event when much might be carried off the field. 

Thanks to these programs and efficiency tools, thousands of farms in the Midwest managed to cut fertilizer loss by an average of 25 percent on half a million acres – all while maintaining or increasing crop yields.

Awareness of runoff is growing

Most farmers want to be good stewards and they’re open to trying new practices and technology once they see the results on their own farms.

In northwestern Ohio, for example, it was common practice to spread fertilizers on frozen or snow-covered ground during the winter.

With the increasing focus on Lake Erie’s algae problems – and the awareness that much of that fertilizer spread in the winter may not actually penetrate down to the soil, but can run off during spring rain and snowmelt – this practice is now widely frowned upon and no longer common.

But a lot more must be done.

Connecting the supply chain for greater impact

Major retailers and food companies today have an interest in sustainable production. It offers a great opportunity for making conservation an integrated part of the business of agriculture in a whole new way, and builds on the good work we’re already doing with farmers on the ground.

Today, EDF working with Walmart, General Mills, United Suppliers and other influential food companies, agribusinesses and grower organizations to drive transformative change. Our common goal is to improve water and air quality while achieving high levels of productivity across America’s agricultural system.

Scaling up projects like these is a necessity. We must send strong signals that producing the food we all eat cannot come at the expense of our streams, rivers and lakes – or of the people who depend on them for drinking water.

Karen Chapman

A field planted with a mustard cover crop

jillmotts/flickr

I grew up on my grandfather’s 65-acre farm in Central Ohio. In the 1960's and 70's he grew sweet corn, silage corn and clover hay, raised meat chickens and kept laying hens.

Even in an age of high-tech agriculture, farmers' ingenuity and enterprise still plays a major role.

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