Items Tagged with 'Ogallala Aquifer'

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack pronounced himself pleased with U.S. efforts at the COP28 climate change meeting in Dubai, citing, in particular, a declaration signed by 152 countries outlining “the steps that need to be taken in order to ensure that we can produce the food necessary to meet the nutritional needs of the world now, and in the future, in light of a changing climate.”

The Agriculture Department, state agencies, private companies and non-profits are preparing to distribute $1.1 billion through 81 new Regional Conservation Partnership Program projects.

Experts expect farmland values to plateau in 2023 in part because interest rates have risen from nearly zero to nearly 5% in less than a year.

Farmers across the central and southern Plains are drawing down the underground reserves they have long relied on to irrigate their corn, soybeans, cotton and wheat. A Kansas state agency wants to do something about the problem and is calling for that state to end a policy of "planned depletion.

Conservation groups and the Biden administration  are betting big that the promise of direct payments to farmers will supercharge their interest in cover crops, a practice relatively few have tried despite documented benefits to soil health, greenhouse emissions and water quality.

This is the first part of a four-part series examining the promise of cover crops, the potential for them to meet the nation’s environmental goals that rest on their success, and the potential pitfalls and unintended consequences of trying to make cover crops work in parts of the country where they currently don’t.

By 2050 we’ll need to produce and provide food and water for nearly 10 billion people, many of whom will live in some of the world’s poorest, most water short, albeit fastest growing, regions.