RENO – A new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report shows use of no-till, crop rotations, more efficient irrigation methods and advanced technologies have climbed in recent years.
The report from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) demonstrates progress made through voluntary conservation over a 10-year period. Findings from the report will inform future conservation strategies, including USDA’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
The “Conservation Practices on Cultivated Cropland: A Comparison of CEAP I and CEAP II Survey Data and Modeling” was developed by USDA’s Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP). It found significant gains for soil health and soil carbon storage, while also identifying areas where additional and targeted nutrient management strategies are needed.
“This latest CEAP report is another strong indicator of the importance of incentivized voluntary conservation,” said Ray Dotson, NRCS State Conservationist in Nevada. “But we have more work to do. Reports like this help us better understand conservation approaches and make improvements to increase positive impacts. This report will help steer our conservation efforts well into the future by helping us communicate the facts to producers implementing conservation practices.”
Key findings include:
Farmers increasingly adopted advanced technology, including enhanced-efficiency fertilizers and variable rate fertilization to improve efficiency, assist agricultural economies and benefit the environment.
More efficient conservation tillage systems, particularly no-till, became the dominant form of tillage, improving soil health and reducing fuel use.
Use of structural practices increased, largely in combination with conservation tillage as farmers increasingly integrated conservation treatments to gain efficiencies. Structural practices include terraces, filter and buffer strips, grassed waterways and field borders.
Irrigation expanded in more humid areas, and as irrigators shifted to more efficient systems and improved water management strategies, peracre water application rates decreased by 19 percent and withdrawals by 7 million-acre-feet.
Nearly 70 percent of cultivated cropland had conservation crop rotations, and 28 percent had high-biomass conservation crop rotations.
Because of this increased conservation, the report estimates: Average annual water (sheet and rill) and wind erosion dropped by 70 million and 94 million tons, respectively, and edge-of-field sediment loss declined by 74 million tons.
Nearly 26 million additional acres of cultivated cropland were gaining soil carbon, and carbon gains on all cultivated cropland increased by over 8.8 million tons per year.
Nitrogen and phosphorus losses through surface runoff declined by 3 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Average annual fuel use dropped by 110 million gallons of diesel fuel equivalents, avoiding associated greenhouse gas emissions of nearly 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents.