Farmers Preaching to Choir

At a recent soil health Summit, Dr. Harold Van Es of Cornell University discussed how his students, who are future farmers, reacted to his area of science. I asked if the information he presented went to fertile minds. "Oh absolutely. These are young people, open-minded. It has been my experience that the students in my classes, I go to their farms and I see a lot of changes. They have been able to convince their parents, let's try reduced tillage or let's bring in a cover crop. A lot of innovations have come from farmers, farmers who tinker with equipment, try different cover crops for different rotations and figure things out. When we think about soil health, there has been a very large contribution by farmer innovators. These people are very excited about what they have been able to achieve. I think there is a tremendous opportunity to have them talk about their experiences and for them to also be a teacher."

Dr. Van Es uses the old expression preaching to the choir. I asked him what he meant? "What I mean is in terms of preaching to the choir, let us turn it around and have the choir become the preachers. Farmers have to make investments to improve their soil health. They have to buy cover crop seed or make additional passes on the field. In order to convince someone to change their management practices, they want to see a return on that investment, so we have to think about, how can we increase the value not only in terms of increased crop yields but also increasing the value of the land.