The Long-Term Fix

Soil fertility specialist Les Lanyon believes the nutrient management problem is too complex to solve by focusing only at the farm level. Inset: Lanyon examines a sample of agricultural soil.

Phosphorus comes from geologic deposits, many of which are in North Carolina and Florida. Nitrogen comes from nitrogen fertilizer plants. These nutrients are shipped to the Midwest to fertilize extensive acres of corn and soybeans, which are then shipped to animal feeding areas, often far removed from the source of the feed. Clearly, agricultural nutrients cycle beyond watershed boundaries. For that reason, soil fertility specialist Les Lanyon is concerned about nutrient management legislation based on watershed management.

For three years, Lanyon studied nutrient flows in an agricultural watershed. He examined field data collected by USDA-ARS scientists at the University Park laboratory, and talked with farmers who raise livestock. By discovering how much fertilizer and manure was applied, what crops were harvested, and how much animal feed was purchased, he was able to calculate the amount of nutrients moving into and out of the watershed. He confirmed that the boundaries of "farms" are not the same as the boundaries of watersheds.

"Nutrient management often is viewed as a farm problem that can be solved by encouraging farmers to adopt new practices," he says. "But the nutrient management problem actually resulted from the way our modern food system evolved. Legislation solely aimed at farmers seriously underestimates the scope of the situation."

Before World War II, when agricultural nutrients were scarce, most farm products were consumed near the land on which they were produced. "Manure and crop residues were able to cycle back into the soil, rather than accumulate on the land, so management of excess nutrients wasn't a problem," Lanyon explains. "But after the war, the conversion of explosives factories to nitrogen fertilizer plants restructured American agriculture. Once synthetic fertilizers became available, corn and soybeans could be produced to feed grain-based diets to livestock, and modern animal farming began."

Not only does our current food system limit a farmer's ability to deal with the problem, Lanyon says, but the agricultural industry is competing in a global marketplace. "Farmers have one foot in the natural world and one foot in the economic world," he says. "They can't easily pass on additional costs to consumers, and agribusinesses must market their products in competition with other nations. If a nutrient management plan requires farmers to spread manure over larger acreages, it can result in higher application costs, decreasing their competitiveness. Farms and the businesses that depend on them could go out of business because of these requirements. This could change the character of our rural communities."

B & J Pork Production is the primary livestock farm in the Mahantango watershed where Les Lanyon calculated nutrient balances.

Half of Pennsylvania's farm receipts come from the dairy industry, an industry that has traditionally maintained enough land to produce forages. "Problems occur in areas where the number of animals is not connected to the productivity of the adjacent land," Lanyon says. "Nutrient management isn't as critical for Pennsylvania as it is for the poultry-producing parts of the Delmarva peninsula. But farmers who are trying to make their living raising hogs and poultry, instead of milking cows, are facing a challenge. And when you consider the business connections those hog and poultry producers have, the nutrient issue becomes very important to the entire community."

In addition, the increasing intensification and specialization in animal agriculture that began after World War II is now beginning to affect dairy producers. "First it was poultry, then hogs, now dairy," Lanyon says. "Today, we have roughly 10,500 producers with an average of 60 cows. In 20 years, some professionals predict that fewer than 1,000 dairy farms will dominate the production in the state. As farms get larger, the connection between the land base and the number of animals tends to break down, and nutrient management problems will grow."

Nutrient management legislation could affect animal agriculture in three ways, Lanyon believes. First, the trend toward larger, more specialized farms could intensify. "I've worked with people in Lancaster who still milk cows in facilities with cornerstones from 1797. Their facilities don't account for the costs of dealing with nutrients. Nutrient management legislation could push that kind of farmer out of business, and the new facilities coming in will tend to be larger." Alternatively, the trend toward larger, more specialized farms could crash. Animal production could become less attractive in heavily legislated regions, and the industry would flee to a more lax location. "Virginia, for example, has restrictive requirements," Lanyon says. "So the poultry industry expanded into West Virginia. That move could happen here, and the industry could crash -- much like what happened with lumber, coal, and steel."

A third scenario involves building bridges through the marketplace between farmers who protect water quality and consumers who value that protection. In that vein, Lanyon came up with the idea for "Chesapeake Milk," a brand that lets consumers pay a little extra to reward farmers for doing a good job of protecting the environment. The milk is being test-marketed through the Dairy Network Partnership, a collaboration between the College, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, the Rodale Institute, and EPA. To participate, farmers undergo a yearly farm evaluation that examines how well they are protecting waterways. The evaluation looks at such things as whether cows are in the stream, whether the barnyard is well managed, and how pesticides are stored and handled.

Ideally, a half-gallon of Chesapeake Milk will cost a nickel more than other brands. Half of that nickel will go to farmers who want to improve their farms by adopting measures such as stream-bank fencing and waterway crossings. The other half will go directly to farmers who are already doing a good job. "When consumers buy this product, we can certify that they are buying water quality protection," Lanyon says. "It's a new concept. Instead of fining farmers when they are doing something wrong, this program rewards farmers who are doing something right."

The challenge is to get Chesapeake Milk on grocery store shelves so Lanyon can find out if consumers are willing to pay for water quality protection. "Getting farmers to participate should be no problem," he says. "At some meetings, 95 percent of the farmers have been interested. That's very unusual for an environmental program." In December 1998, the Dairy Network Partnership began test-marketing Chesapeake Milk at 10 Fresh Fields grocery stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Northern Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Because Fresh Fields targets an upscale market, Lanyon hopes to expand the project to other grocery stores and reach a more representative sample of the population. He also hopes to see the idea applied to other foods, such as poultry.

"We can tinker with farms until we're blue in the face and we're not going to solve the nutrient problem," says Doug Beegle. That's going to take a fundamental change in agriculture and how consumers view it. We're blessed with cheap food, and now we want a clean environment, but it's going to cost something. In the 1970s, we decided we wanted clean air. We didn't like the air pollution from all those cars. As a society, we passed laws to make it happen -- but it's resulted in much more expensive cars. We need to want clean water enough that we're willing to pay more for our food. Most people don't perceive water quality as a critical problem -- yet. But I'd like to think that as a society, we're smart enough not to wait for a crisis before we do something."

-- Kim Dionis

Faculty and staff referenced in this article are Doug Beegle, professor of agronomy; Robert Graves, professor of agricultural engineering; Ken Kephart, associate professor of animal science; Les Lanyon, professor of soil fertility; Paul Patterson, associate professor of poultry science; Leon Ressler, extension agent in Lancaster County; and Andrew Sharpley, adjunct professor of soil science, USDA-ARS. Joe Garber of Wenger's Feed Mill, Inc., earned his bachelor's degree in poultry technology and management from Penn State in 1994.

Research and extension work discussed in this article was funded by the Chesapeake Bay Program, the College of Agricultural Sciences, National Pork Producers Council, Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Pennsylvania Egg Check-Off, Pennsylvania Pork Producers Council, Pennsylvania Poultry Federation, Pennsylvania State Conservation Commission, Purina Mills Research Fellowship, United States Department of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture Hatch and Smith-Lever funds, and United States Department of Agriculture Water Quality Initiative. The Penn State Organic Materials Processing and Education Center is a cooperative effort between the College of Agricultural Sciences, Housing and Food Services, Office of Physical Plant, and Hospitality Services.