Best Management Practices (BMPs)
are designed to save farmers money and maintain optimal yields.
The BMP CHALLENGE programs use local university BMP recommendations
along with local crop advisors to ensure that BMP CHALLENGE programs
meet the needs of the farmer. With BMP and below BMP rates, any
one year can result in less than maximum yields, though net savings
can be positive.
The BMP CHALLENGE programs work to give
farmers an opportunity to test reduced nutrient and tillage
rates on their fields, without worrying about loss to their
income. BMP CHALLENGE can work directly with farmers, through
watershed/conservation districts, and with other organizations, to
reduce nutrient and sediment outputs to local waterways and educate
farmers on BMPs. Currently, these programs can be implemented in
15 states* throughout the United States.
The BMP CHALLENGE is a
collaborative project of Agflex,
the IPM
Institute of North America, and American
Farmland Trust (AFT). Since 1980, AFT has helped preserve more than a million acres
of working farmland. AFT's Agricultural
Conservation Innovation Center began the BMP risk management
project in 1996 with a broad survey of BMPs, cropping systems and
analyses of economic risk as a barrier to BMP adoption, including
nutrient management and Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
The BMP CHALLENGE is supported
in part by grants from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation
Service, Altria Group, Bush Foundation, Iowa Department of Economic
Development, McKnight Foundation and the Great Lakes
Protection Fund.
*Delaware,
Idaho, Iowa,
Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North
Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
BMP
CHALLENGE Documents - Read more about BMP CHALLENGE goals and progress.
Quarterly Reports:
June
2008
March 2008
December
2007
September 2007
June 2007
March 2007
December 2006
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