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The problem with revolutionary ideas for farming is that many of them don’t live up to their promises. . . . Every time a farmer tries a gizmo that messes with their yields they are laying a year’s wages on the roulette table.
. . . .The Environmental Defense Fund, along with several partners, is tackling this problem by creating a kind of Consumer Reports for farm sustainability tools called NutrientStar. . . .
NutrientStar is focused on reducing fertilizer loss — it’s basically a clearing house for assessments of fertilizer gizmos. Making fertilizer creates a lot of greenhouse gases, putting too much of it on a field creates even more, and when washed off fields it pollutes waterways and leads to algae blooms. There’s been an explosion of new products claiming to help farmers deliver fertilizer to crops more efficiently. . . Now, you can go to NutrientStar to see which of these products have been scrutinized. . . .
For . . .a Cornell-developed system called Adapt-N, NutrientStar has a summary of randomized field trials. Farmers have traditionally applied the same amount of fertilizer across every square foot of their field. A tool like Adapt-N tells them to put a little more on one square foot, and a little less on another. The field trials show that farmers using Adapt-N reduced their nitrogen use by 37 pounds per acre, increased yields by two bushels an acre, and increased profits by $30 per acre.
. . . .Data like that might even give farmers the confidence to invest in some expensive gizmo, or revolutionary idea.
Read full, original post: Farmers don’t try new things because it’s too risky. This could change that
