An Analysis of Environmental Management Approaches with Six Midwestern Dairy Farms: Informing Progress Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

An Analysis of Environmental Management Approaches with Six Midwestern Dairy Farms: Informing Progress Toward a Sustainable Agriculture

Summary

A textual comparison of 6 different agricultural-environmental approaches was used to identify strengths and gaps within each program. Case studies of farmers utilizing each of these programs illustrated how agricultural sustainability is farmer driven, and three practices – commitment to stewardship, transparency of operations and involvement of community, and continual improvement through planning, monitoring, assessment, and action – are common among successful managers. We asked farmer collaborators to develop an Environmental Management System (EMS) to explore whether the EMS planning process would complement the other programs. Implementation of an EMS helped farmers prioritize environmental aspects and led to action to improve environmental farm management.

Objectives/Performance Targets

Objective 1: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each environmental management scheme based on its written directives, recommendations and procedures.
Objective 2: Develop a case study of each farm to help us assess how the different schemes operate in practice and to ground-truth our analysis of the documentation.
Objective 3: Develop an environmental management system for each farm to address gaps in environmental performance.
Objective 4: Improve the viability of the EMS process to move all types of farms toward genuine sustainability.

The final year of the project was focused on Objective 4 of the project: Improve the viability of the EMS process to move all types of farms toward genuine sustainability. This objective was met through evaluation of the EMS tool and process (as detailed in the annual report for 2006, and summarized below) and development of suggestions to modify the EMS protocol, in recognition of some of the barriers to farmer participation in planning for environmental management.

Accomplishments/Milestones

For the final phase of the project, project staff concentrated on Objective 4, “Improve the viability of the EMS process to move all types of farms toward genuine sustainability.”

A large component of this objective was in evaluating the lessons learned from the six pilot farms as they implemented an EMS, and using this information to identify the benefits and constraints associated with the EMS protocol. Additionally, during this phase of the project, we concentrated on the outreach component of the project.

Outreach activities/tasks completed during this period:

(1) Web site launched at http://www.uwex.edu/farmandhome/sare/

(2) Media presentations on the website include: a slide show and narrative, a power point presentation, a poster graphic, and the matrix analysis of program components.

(3) “Farmers’ Guide to Sustainability” completed: a gap analysis of program components of the six approaches analyzed in matrix form on the website and available in printed format.

(4) Development of a poster for information tabling.

(5) Presentation of project results, utilizing the powerpoint presentation, to University of Wisconsin-Madison colleagues.

(6) Completion of a report on the lessons learned through implementation of environmental management systems on six farms (shared with other EMS promoters and practitioners).

(7) Tabling with project information at two regional conferences – the Midwest Value Added Agriculture Conference/Wisconsin Local Food Summit (Eau Claire, WI; Jan. 2008) and the Organic Farming Conference (La Crosse, WI; Feb. 2008).

While the officially funded SARE project is complete (as of the end of 2007), we anticipate continuing with various aspects of and follow-up from this project, notably the following:

(1) Completion of a summary sheet about the potential for use of EMS as a supplement to already existing program record keeping practices (intended audience: Extension personnel, NRCS and soil and water conservation agents, certifiers from various programs such as organics, food alliance, grazing, and holistic management).

(2) Development of an additional summary sheet to highlight how EMS can be utilized as a tool for farmer assessment of on-farm energy use and potential areas for energy conservation.

(3) Future work on utilization of EMS to promote farm sustainability: Project staff have been working with other staff members of the Environmental Resources Center to plan for future projects concerned with Environmental Management systems. Two angles are being pursued for furtherance of this work: first, developing a training program for conservation professionals and consultants to ‘train the trainers’ on how to work with farmers to develop an EMS for whole farm environmental management. Second, faculty and staff at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Biological Systems Engineering Department have been working with staff of the Environmental Resources Center to develop on-line tools for energy assessment. We hope to develop an outreach/evaluation program to test the on-line tool while at the same time implementing a farmer driven assessment of opportunities for energy savings (through implementation of energy saving technologies and/or change in agronomic practices) using tools from EMS.

Evaluation of the EMS tool and process

Evaluation results from the study revealed that farmers perceived several short-term benefits of implementing the EMS. The benefits identified were primarily process benefits (e.g., better communications, documentation, protocols, understanding of environmental issues, consideration of new environmental management strategies or tools). Because the evaluation occurred shortly after the development of the EMS, it was too early to tell whether there have been measurable environmental benefits realized as a result of the EMS implementation, or whether these particular farmers will continue to utilize the EMS as a management tool. The extent to which farmers incorporate standard operating procedures to continually assess and monitor environmental aspects could not be assessed, but is the essential core of a functional EMS.

The following list summarizes the opinions of the project participants (15 individuals in all) about their experiences with the EMS process.

Positive impressions of the EMS:
(1) Attention to family and employee communications.

(2) Development of standard operating procedures and/or better organization of tasks and procedures. Development of standard procedures allows all employees to know operating protocols and emergency procedures. For family farms, having such procedures specified can allow farm managers to leave the farm for vacations or business, and feel confident in the management abilities of others during these times.

(3) Creation of the environmental aspect inventory and setting priorities provided a framework for farmers to systematically consider various aspects of environmental management, some of which they are working on; others of which have been of lower priority. Documentation of goals and objectives with regard to a broad range of management parameters enables farmers to plan for future improvements, by elucidating aspects that might not have been considered previously, and promotes these issues to the priority list.

(4) The EMS process encourages consideration of new ideas and approaches, while reducing the risks associated with innovation. The assistance of a coach in identifying new management strategies or tools provides information to farmers who are busy with daily farm management, and may not have the time to research new ideas.

(5) Planning and documentation promotes consideration and evaluation of new strategies, and is essential for continuous improvement.

(6) The EMS encourages communication within the enterprise and with the community of residents and stakeholders; as such, the resulting plan is not something confined to just one farm but is the product of expertise from both on and off the farm. The EMS provides a way for multiple sources of knowledge and information to inform the daily workings of the farm.

(7) Some of the documentation required for an EMS is consistent with documentation and monitoring required for other programs (e.g., organic certification, holistic management, food alliance certification) or overlaps in specific categories (soil and water conservation plans, WPDES, managed grazing plans). Farmers who are involved in other programs have experience with record keeping and documentation. Additionally, there is potential for EMS and other programs to complement each other, rather than duplicate each other.

(8) Consideration of energy conservation and efficiency. These aspects have not been considered systematically by other programs, yet are of increasing concern to farmers.

Barriers to implementation of the EMS
(1) There is a considerable amount of documentation required in developing an EMS. For most farms, especially those that do not hire extra labor for administration, this extensive requirement for documentation is a significant barrier. The documentation requirement can be perceived as unnecessary or redundant for small farms, in that one or two operators are responsible for all aspects of an operation and thus do not feel the need to record at the level of detail typically required for an EMS.

(2) Related to the documentation challenge is the time commitment required for paperwork and monitoring. While the participating farmers recognized the reasons for, and the value of, record keeping, they do not have any extra time to do this, particularly in the absence of a definite cost savings or economic incentive.

(3) The role of the coach or consultant is extremely important as someone to move the process along and to follow up with research on particular environmental aspects. Yet, smaller scale farms typically do not have extra finances to invest in hiring outside consultants without a clear
economic gain to be realized.

(4) Farmers are already involved in one or more other environmental management programs, and may find the planning and documentation necessary for the EMS redundant with what they are already doing.

(5) Many of the priority environmental aspects that farmers identified were things that they intended to work on anyway, but which may not previously have ranked amongst the highest priority tasks, when balanced against other goals (e.g., production, marketing, economics, life-style).

The EMS coach associated with the project identified several additional constraints to establishing an EMS protocol that can be easily utilized by Wisconsin dairy farmers:

(a) Time constraints: Establishment of an EMS requires a discrete time commitment for communication with partners and employees, planning, review, record keeping, monitoring, and training. These tasks necessitate discussions away from the traditional farming working environment, often times in a meeting format. In order for an EMS to be successful, there are requirements for internal and external communications. Communicating with community members and resource people (ecologists, conservationists, and others) takes time, and adds a new dimension to the daily work load. These tasks may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable for farmers.

(b) Farmers have worked in partnership with government conservation agency personnel to establish soil conservation and nutrient management plans. Some farmers who are participants in current government conservation programs (e.g. soil and water conservation, nutrient management, pesticide applicator training) contend that they are already fully engaged in environmental management for their farms. They are not aware of the many dimensions and aspects associated with environmental management.

(c) Farmers receive assistance with completion of the paperwork associated with soil conservation and nutrient management plans from agency personnel. Unless there is a coach (or agency personnel) to assist with paperwork requirements of an EMS, farmers may view it as extremely tedious and unnecessary.

(d) Farmers familiar with current conservation programs tend to participate because there is a program incentive or economic benefit to participation. This is not yet the case with EMS.

These constraints highlight that EMS is a business management tool that is not familiar to the rank and file dairy farmers in the state, and which may not be readily incorporated into current management practices.

In summary, evaluation of the EMS with the six pilot farms indicated that there are perceived benefits to the process – in particular, it prompts farmers to identify and prioritize environmental impacts and to consider improvements that might not have been on the planning agenda previously. However, the documentation and record keeping requirements are extensive, and this negates the likelihood of a wide range of farming operations making use of this management tool, at least as is outlined and promoted in most EMS programs and policies. Of note is that the current study, like the studies before it, found that the development of and implementation of the EMS is not scale-neutral. This is in part due to the fact that the basis of most EMS is the ISO 14000 protocol, which was designed with large corporations in mind, and to advance global trade. As noted in our 2006 project report, “A farm or business with many employees and a large community and environmental “footprint” fits the profile of organizations that typically engage in the EMS process,” (SARE project report, 3/2007). The challenge for EMS supporters is to develop means for small- and medium- scale operations to realize the benefits of an EMS, without being overburdened with record-keeping and documentation requirements.

Suggestions for Utilization of EMS

The project team proposes integration of the positive aspects of EMS into existing programs, such as those analyzed in our study. Many of the strengths of EMS are process strengths – the strategies employed to assure consideration of and action on a wide range of environmental aspects of farming. EMS process tools emphasize record keeping and monitoring of environmental impacts, identification of indicators to show improvement in environmental performance, engaging a community process and dialogue, and continuous improvement. These process elements can be incorporated into training programs already being utilized by regulators, certifiers, extension educators, and other consultants working to support farmers and the farm economy.

The farmers involved in the study, “An Analysis of Environmental Management Approaches with Six Midwestern Dairy Farms” were chosen because of their involvement (and success) with a particular approach or program that prescribes specific means toward effective environmental management. To repeat, the programs/approaches represented included: certified organic, certified by the Food Alliance Midwest, grass-based Holistic Management, biodynamic, a confined animal feeding operation regulated under the Wisconsin Pollution Discharge Elimination System (WPDES), and farm participating in traditional soil and water conservation programs. Each of these existing environmental programs addresses various and multiple aspects of environmental management, and requires specific documentation of practices in order to receive the benefit of program participation (for an analysis of these programs and the aspects that they address, see the 2006 project report).

A promising avenue for future development of EMS is in the context of these current environmental management approaches. An EMS could complement these programs by providing a system to assess environmental aspects that are not currently covered in these programs.

By “marrying” the EMS with existing programs, farmers can benefit from the strengths of both, with less demand on their time and resources. Existing programs have economic incentives built into them, whether market based (e.g., certification or labeling that allows farmers to market their products as specialty products), regulatory (such as the WPDES), or eligibility for federal cost sharing programs (e.g., soil and water conservation and/or natural resources programs such as CSP, EQIP, CRP, etc.). Because these programs are well established, farmers know about them, and know how to get the information they need to participate. Those who are participating have already established personal relationships with the personnel administering these programs (e.g., DNR regulators, county-based soil and water conservationists, certifiers, H.M. trainers). These personal relationships are critical for successful implementation of innovations or environmental management requirements. Program staff of existing programs could offer EMS components to their clientele, and could serve as “coaches” for EMS planning activities.

The Environmental Management Systems Guidebook for Wisconsin Farmers developed through the PLEMS project is a self-contained environmental assessment system. This guidebook could be retrofitted to a three ring binder system with sections on specific aspects of a farming operation. In order to reduce the paperwork required for an EMS, coaches would use specific sections of the EMS handbook as an “add-on” to the regulatory or certificatory documents already being used for other programs. In this way, environmental aspects that are already covered through other existing programs would not be duplicated, and farmers would not be overwhelmed with a large, bureaucratic process.

Project staff have been exploring the potential of utilizing EMS tools, in combination with an on-line energy assessment tool (which has been developed by ERC in conjunction with Biological Systems Engineering Department and the “Focus on Energy” program). Farmer assessment of on-farm environmental aspects, in combination with hard data for energy assessment and expert advise in interpreting this data, could produce a robust decision-making technique to move farmers toward greater energy efficiency.

Other suggested modifications to the EMS practice involve the implementation of EMS. We feel that the assistance of a “coach” is essential. The coach could be any agricultural services person trained in how to develop an EMS and familiar with the resources (information, cost-sharing programs, technologies, agronomic practices, experts) available to farmers. A critical challenge for EMS promoters is to develop concrete economic benefits to utilization of EMS. For example, if insurance reductions or cost sharing for improvements were available, farmers would find rationale to hire a consultant/coach to help with the process. Similarly, if there were a market incentive, such as supply chain demand for certification that is associated with enhanced environmental performance, this would stimulate interest in EMS. Alternatively, Extension Agents could fulfill the EMS coaching function, and thus provide the service for free or at significantly lower costs.

The intent and practice of EMS can be communicated to farmers by group means, in addition to the relationship with a coach. Both holistic management and managed grazing farmer networks make use of group teaching/learning strategies, including group discussions, farm walks, or networking meetings. These adult-learning strategies could be utilized to discuss environmental aspects of farming. For many adult learners, examples are often more powerful than checklists (such as those provided through the EMS tool). Farmers can learn of new ideas and innovation (especially in the area of energy conservation) through sharing stories and experiences, farmer networks and field days, and other means whereby groups of people are discussing, evaluating, and assessing impacts together.

In the context of existing environmental programs, an EMS “supplement” can highlight the importance of commitment to environmental quality, internal and external communications, consideration of community impacts, and management for continual improvement, using the tools developed for EMS: the environmental policy statement, the environmental aspects inventory, and priority setting exercises – all of which are identified strengths of the EMS system.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Farmer Impacts: For the 6 farmers who were involved as farmer collaborators in this study, the project had a direct impact. Farmers were assisted by a coach (Project staff Karl Hakanson) in developing an EMS for their farm. The farmers identified two priority environmental aspects to work on. It was specified that one of these aspects should be an energy related issue. The process of developing an EMS raised the farmers awareness of various environmental considerations on their farms, and especially of energy issues. The farmers worked on the following environmental management aspects:

Organic farm:
(1) Reducing energy use in crop production: a change in dairy cow feed mix allowed farmers to plant less tillage intensive crops (no-till organic soybean, buff oats production). This reduced costs of production and fossil fuel use, decreased emissions, soil erosion and labor demands.

(2) Improve threatened species habitat: created habitat for wildlife for CSP tier III (woodpeckers, meadowlarks).

Food Alliance Farm:
(1) Dairy energy efficiency: assessment of energy use led to several energy efficiency measures, including installation of a plate cooler and rerouting of warmed plate cooler water to cattle watering tanks.

(2) Improvement of cattle watering area to reduce runoff: Installed watering lines on pastures to keep cattle out of streambed.

Holistic Management Farm:
(1) Creamery and store energy efficiency: farmers looked into wind power and other sources of power. These farmers continue to consider options for on-farm energy generation.

(2) Milkhouse runoff: working to reduce water pollution, odor and risks associated with milkhouse runoff. They contracted with an engineer to design improvements to the milkhouse to deal with waste.

(3) Flies: introduced parasitic wasps for biological fly control.

Soil and Water Conservation Farm:
(1) Dairy energy efficiency: the farmers conducted an assessment of dairy facility energy use and continue to monitor energy use. In order to save on energy costs and better manage manure and reduce erosion, these farmers have increased grazing of cows to save on electric expenses and to reduce barnyard erosion.

(2) Updating nutrient management and soil conservation plans: updated plans and got assistance from conservationist on cost-share funds and designs for a gutter system and barnyard runoff control. Installed gutters on heifer shed to reduce run-off.

CAFO Farm:
(1) Energy efficiency of operations: this farm never did the energy assessment.

(2) Worker health and safety: developed worker safety sheets in Spanish. They worked on developing standard operating procedures and translating these into Spanish.

Biodynamic Farm:
(1) Energy and manure management: improve the composting manure arrangement. No changes were made as the farmer sold the farm in order to move to Ecuador.

Broader Contribution of the study: With upwards of 16,000 dairy farms in Wisconsin, the agricultural landscape in the state is dominated by family-scale dairy farms, and the state’s land and water resources are impacted by the environmental management practices on these farms. Dairy farms in Wisconsin are largely unregulated, and are free to choose their environmental management strategy based on their own land management regime, their philosophy regarding their farm, and – to a certain extent – their marketing practices (in that certification requirements impose certain restrictions or requirements regarding land management, crop production, and animal husbandry).

In this project, we sought to understand what characterized a successful farm environmental manager. We tested the impact of program participation (how do agriculture-environmental program approaches guide farmer management of land and other resources?). We also tested whether an environmental management system (EMS) could supplement other programs to help farmers better manage environmental aspects of their farming operation.

EMS is a decision-making process that has been formalized as an international standard (ISO 14001) in order to respond to growing interest in a production process that includes the environment as a core aspect of management. The EMS approach offers a process through which practitioners can gain insight into the specific environmental vulnerabilities they face. EMS is a decision-making tool for farmers that highlights aspects of environmental management that are not covered in other decision making tools utilized by farm managers (for example, business planning, accounting, and the like).

EMS has not seen widespread adoption in the U.S. farming community, although it has been piloted by various projects, including the USDA/CSREES/IUFAFS funded “Partnerships for Livestock Environmental Management Systems” (http://www.uwex.edu/agems/livestock). Within the European community and the Australian continent, EMS in agriculture has been more extensively implemented and tested (Carruthers, 2006; Galan, et. al., 2006; Gunningham, 2006).

Nevertheless, in order to protect water resources and assure environmentally sound agricultural land management, there is need for some form of environmental management and compliance system. The State of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has been exploring means to promote voluntary EMS in a “Green Tier” certification. Participation in Green Tier offers farm businesses a range of business and operating incentives. A requirement of participation is implementation of an EMS and working toward continuous improvement.

The WI DNR is initiating a major thrust to train farmers in use of EMS as a tool to establish voluntary environmental improvement goals. The ultimate goal of the DNR is to assist farmers to be better environmental managers, in order to reach the collective goal of improving water quality and natural resources. As detailed in their proposal:

“In Wisconsin, approximately 1% of our 15,000 dairy farms are required to have water permits and comply with existing confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) regulations. This means 99% of dairy farms don’t have any environmental permits at all and are largely unregulated by DNR. As a practical matter, the only short-term prospect for Wisconsin to address our agricultural runoff issues on the smallest 99% of farms is by supplementing, rather than expanding, the permit program.”

Our project – and past work on EMS at the Environmental Resources Center – has informed, and continues to inform, the planning and implementation of the state wide DNR project. We anticipate that some form of EMS will become more commonplace, as a management tool, across a wide range of farm sizes and sectors. We hope that the findings from this study will inform future development of EMS, such that it will be useful to farmers of all scales in more effectively managing their farm environment.

Sources:

Carruthers, Genevieve. 2006. “Outcomes of EMS Implementation on Australian Farms.” Pgs. 33-45 in Farm Policy Journal, Vol. 3, No. 4: November.

Galan, M.B., D. Preschard, H. Boizard. 2007. “ISO 14 001 at the farm level: Analysis of five methods for evaluating the environmental impact of agricultural practices.” Journal of Environmental Management Vol. 82, Issue 3. (Feb. 2007) 341-352.

Gunningham, Neil. 2007. “Incentives to improve farm management: EMS, supply-chains and civil society.” Journal of Environmental Management Vol. 82, Issue 3. (Feb. 2007) 302-310.

Collaborators: