How States Are Helping Farmers Adopt Sustainable Practices

Programs that use creative pathways to fund and enlist farmers in agricultural conservation are the subject of a new report aimed at calling attention to the various ways states are innovating so that others can follow suit.

“It’s not exhaustive … we tried to home in on funding sources and financing tools that were showing strong innovation in a few different states, and that also showed opportunity for replication,” Maggie Monast, who works on economic incentives for agricultural sustainability at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and is a co-author of the report, told Civil Eats.

The report was produced in collaboration with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA), an organization that represents the commissioners, secretaries, and directors of agriculture in all 50 states. Its official release was part of a bigger focus on addressing environmental issues at the organization’s annual meeting in September, Civil Eats reported.

Recent Duke University graduates John Feldmann and Vincent Gauthier were co-authors as part of their master’s thesis, which was advised by Lydia Olander, director of the Ecosystem Services Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and Randall Kramer, professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment.