Beverly Bolster is an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland and a guest contributor to this blog.
Sustainable farming practices, such as planting cover crops, applying compost to fields, rotating crops, and not tilling soil, can create long-term benefits for farmers, increase crop productivity, and benefit the entire food system. However, these methods may require increased costs or labor or seem financially risky to farmers who have engaged in the same type of farming for years or decades. As such, the next farm bill should establish and fund programs to incentivize farmers to engage in these practices while reducing the potential for economic harm to farmers. One way, FBLE recommends, to encourage adoption of sustainable farming practices is through crop insurance subsidies.
In recent years, the federal government has already shown commitment to these goals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency started the Pandemic Cover Crop Program (PCCP), offering farmers a discount of five dollars off their crop insurance for each acre of land on which they planted cover crops. However, this program was funded through emergency funding. To make this system permanent and to enable farmers to continue receiving subsidies for planting cover crops, the next farm bill should include a program similar to the PCCP.
Cover crops have many benefits–planting cover crops, instead of leaving the soil bare, increases the capacity of the soil to absorb water and reduces erosion. When cover crops die and decay, this adds organic matter to the soil. Planting cover crops after a harvest also enables the absorption of excess nutrients, such as nitrogen.
In addition to implementing a crop insurance subsidy program for cover crops, the farm bill should establish a program to provide crop insurance subsidies to farmers who apply compost to their fields. Like cover crops, compost has many long-term benefits to boost crop productivity. Compost adds nutrients and organic matter to the soil, aiding plant growth and improving the capacity of the soil to retain water. This also has environmental benefits: increased water retention reduces runoff into nearby waterways, and compost enhances the ability of the soil to store carbon, lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Beyond programs to encourage the planting of cover crops and the application of compost to fields, the farm bill should include funding for additional environmental stewardship actions. As our population continues to grow, putting more pressure on the environment and food systems, the farm bill should fund other pilot programs that would incentivize farmers to engage in sustainable agriculture practices. These may include crop rotation or no-till farming, both of which preserve nutrients and organic matter in the soil to reduce runoff and boost crop productivity. Increasing yield and resiliency through sustainable farming practices provides economic benefits to farmers, promotes food security, and supports the overall food system by enabling more crops to be produced on the same amount of land.
Implementing crop insurance subsidy programs to incentivize environmental stewardship practices in the next farm bill will increase the adoption by farmers and promote the long-term sustainability of farms. In addition to environmental and sustainability benefits, the increase in soil health from the use of environmental stewardship practices also has the potential to decrease crop insurance payouts. These programs will benefit farmers by reducing the risk of crop failure, protect the environment by decreasing erosion and runoff and increasing carbon sequestration, and promote food security by increasing farm yield and productivity. Thus, crop insurance subsidy programs should be implemented through the next farm bill.
The views and opinions expressed on the FBLE Blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of FBLE. While we review posts for accuracy, we cannot guarantee the reliability and completeness of any legal analysis presented; posts on this Blog do not constitute legal advice. If you discover an error, please reach out to contact@farmbilllaw.org.
Photo credit: Caroline Donovan, Integration and Application Network
