NEERA1002: Adaptive Management for Improved Nutrient Management
Statement of Issues and Justification
The agricultural community needs to improve the efficiency of nutrient management for food and feed production for both economic and environmental reasons. Improving efficiency will require more than new technology. It will require a different approach to nutrient management: the use of adaptive management concepts and processes.As nutrient management in agriculture becomes increasing connected to regulations and government payments, there has been an increase in the public's demand for accountability. Adaptive management has the potential to rapidly accelerate improvements in nutrient management through the documentation by growers of the most efficient management practices.
Canadian ecological theorist C.S. Holling (1978) developed some of the first adaptive management concepts. There are a number of definitions of adaptive management in the literature, but one useful and concise definition states that it is a process of dealing with uncertainty in the management of renewable resources (Walters, 1986). The process of adaptive management requires the involvement of all interested parties in a process to solve a complex biological problem. Especially important is the involvement of end users in the collection of data through simple experiments, and a participatory learning process so all parties understand the data. Lee (1993) describes adaptive management as process of learning that "is information-intensive and requires active participation from those most likely to be affected by the policies being implemented".
Adaptive management has been used to design and implement plans and policies for enhancing salmon fish runs in the Columbia River Basin (Lee, 1993) and to obtain widespread adoption by subsistence farmers of Green Revolution crops (Lee, 1999), especially the high-yielding rice varieties.
Adaptive management uses simple experiments performed in cooperation with the end user of the information and subsequent discussion of the results of the experiments with scientists to create both new information and learning. This participatory learning process is the heart of the adaptive management. Participatory learning provides the condition in which learning takes place through experience, open and equal interactions, and personal exploration (Pretty and Chambers, 1994). Equal emphasis is placed on outcome (i.e. research results) and process. The process is designed to help people help themselves.
Participatory learning is based on research about how adults learn best. The research indicates that lecture and classroom-style of training is not effective in helping adults to develop proficiency in solving problems that are "ill-defined" and complex (Allen et al., 1987; Ford and Weissbein, 1997; Sheckley and Keeton, 1997; Tannenbaum, 1997). Classroom training only works well if the problem is well defined (Reber, 1993; Voss and Post, 1988). Nutrient management decisions are ill-defined and it would not be expected that lecture and classroom-type of training programs will be effective because: 1) there is no one right answer to the best rate, form and timing of nutrient applications that can be taught in a classroom; 2) solutions must be developed within the context and resources of farms, on the farms; and 3); because learning new approaches often requires 'unlearning' old methods, growers will need direct, concrete evidence that the new methods work. Growers will need to see and discuss results on their own or other's farms to abandon 'tried and true' practices.
Instead of lecture or class room-style of training the emphasis in adaptive management is on active learning by doing and by discussion of new information in groups of growers. Several studies in the United States found that students with farming backgrounds prefer learning by experience over learning by reading or listening to abstract concepts (Skadds, 1992, Roberts and Lee, 1977). Extension has successfully employed learning by experience when using demonstration trials on fields of farmers who are leaders in their communities. Demonstration trials have been most successful, however, for the conveyance of relatively simple information, like the best crop variety to plant, than for conveying complex information like the best rate, form and timing of nutrient applications. Improving practices that are complex, especially practices that often have regulatory oversight, require more structured interactions of all interested parties: growers, researchers, extension, regulators, agricultural service providers and agency personnel.
The use of precision management and digitalization of field records have changed the role of many private sector companies in nutrient management. Some companies are summarizing data across many growers for improving their knowledge of efficient and inefficient practices. This is a rudimentary form of adaptive management. Guidance and training about how to use this data correctly and collectively is not occurring. The lack of guidance is not stopping the private sector from trying to improve their programs from this relatively new influx of data. Because there is no direct guidance on how to use this data in nutrient management, there is a need for technical experts including economists and adult educators to develop an adaptive management strategy tailored for nutrient management. There are models of adaptive management in the ecological area (Walters, 1986; Lee, 1999) that a group of technical experts could use to define new strategies for nutrient management.
Adoption of new strategies to improve the efficiency of nutrient management by farmers would result in a net reduction of nutrients applied to crop land in many areas of the Northeast Region, including the priority watersheds such as the Chesapeake Bay and Long Island Sound. Net reductions of nutrients from manure and fertilizer would reduce losses of nitrogen and phosphorus at the edge of the field and at the bottom of the root zone, which eventually would improve water quality.
New technologies have been developed to improve the efficiency of N management in the past 25 years, but adoption of the technologies by farmers has been extremely low. The two best examples of innovative new technologies that have been adopted by only a small percentage of farmers are the Pre-sidedress Soil Nitrate Test (PSNT) and the Cornstalk Nitrate Test (CSNT). The PSNT was developed in 1984 (Magdoff et al., 1984), almost 25 years ago, and the CSNT was developed in the early 1990s (Binford et al., 1992), more than 15 years ago. Fewer than 10% of farmers in most states have adopted the PSNT, and in many states less than 5% (Fox et al., 1999). There are no reported surveys of adoption rates for the CSNT, but most extension soil fertility specialists in the Northeast would agree that fewer than 2% of farmers in most states use the test (T Morris, Univ of Connecticut, personal communication).
The low adoption rate for these two technologies is probably due to the complexity of N cycling in agricultural soils and because of the large economic penalty if insufficient N is applied to corn. Adaptive management is an ideal process to obtain adoption of new technologies within a complex biological system like N cycling in agricultural fields.
Two on-farm research and education programs have used adaptive management to obtain rapid adoption of the CSNT and better management of N. The Iowa Soybean Association's (ISA) On-Farm Network and the Bay Farms program in Lancaster and Chester counties in PA have implemented on-farm trials of the CSNT using replicated strip trials and surveys of the N status of corn fields with discussions of the results in winter meetings with small groups of farmers. The results have been impressive. The ISA reported that 80% of the farmers in their program changed a practice and reduced N use on average by 32 pounds per acre. The Bay Farms program working with about 100 farmers in Lancaster and Chester counties has reported a net reduction of 27 pounds N per acre on 4,750 acres by 32 farmers. Reductions in N use were not made on all fields. Some fields that showed consistent N deficiencies had more N applied than was traditionally applied, which indicates that efficient use of N could both decrease N use and increase yields. It is important to note that these changes occurred not because growers decided to follow current recommendations, but rather by a fine-tuning of current statewide recommendations to local conditions.
Comprehensive nutrient management plans (CNMPs) are complex documents that could be improved by using the process of adaptive management. Recent surveys of the rate of implementation of CNMPs by NRCS show that 55% of producers do not follow their CNMP because the CNMP is confusing, they prefer to follow their own nutrient application plan, and/or they did not want a CNMP (Anonymous, 2007). An Ad Hoc group of scientists from five Land Grant universities (Universities of Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland; Cornell and Penn State Universities) and scientists from ISA and the Environmental Defense Fund recently meet with the NRCS National Agronomist, National Nutrient Management Specialist and the Director of Ecological Sciences Division in Washington, DC to discuss modifying the NRCS 590 National Standard for nutrient management. The results of the meeting were an agreement to work together to revise parts of the 590 Standard and other NRCS technical processes to include concepts of adaptive management. After the revisions, we will work together to develop and implement an education program for state and county NRCS employees.
The Land Grant scientists attending the meeting in Washington, DC decided at the end of the meeting that a Multistate Research Coordinating Committee should be created in the Northeast to formally cooperate in the development and implementation of adaptive management for improved N management and increased NMP adoption. There is a great need to make more efficient use of N and to devise new methods to for wider implementation of NMPs in the Northeast and other states.
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