Duane Stateler's Hancock County farm is a showcase for conservation practices, many of them designed to keep nitrogen and phosphorus out of drinking water.
Ohio has spent tens of millions of dollars to keep the nutrients out of waterways, most prominently through H2Ohio, a $172 million Ohio Department of Agriculture program that compensates farmers for equipment purchases and restores nutrient-absorbing wetlands.Measuring water quality and identifying the source of harmful nutrients is a complex process requiring meticulous calculations.
Cover crops, for example, work extraordinarily well at trapping nitrogen and keeping soil healthy, but are unable to prevent phosphorus from escaping, Stateler said. “I wouldn't expect to see much change yet,” Johnson said. “It takes time for something like dissolved phosphorus to respond to changes in fertilizer application.”
“I would say the issue is getting better in that we know more of the sources of the nutrients, and we know more approaches to reduce nutrient runoff,” he said. “And we’re getting better because we now know more about how to clean up that water so that humans aren't getting exposed.”“The positive is we know what tools to use, but those tools are expensive,” Winslow said. “We need about a 75-plus percent adoption rate” for some best practices such as planting cover crops.
Such practices try to thread the needle between competing concerns, said Aaron Heilers, project manager for the Blanchard River Demonstration Farms Network. But the upfront cost is daunting. Farmers need to spend tens of thousands of dollars on farm machinery and water monitors.And agriculture is an inherently unpredictable business, making farmers unwilling to spend money on untested practices.
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