Outcome-Based Incentives for Conservation Agriculture

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

Yesterday, I reported on the upcoming webinar about adding value to California cotton. There’s an underlying idea there though that stretches beyond cotton and even beyond California. It’s this idea that some customers are willing to pay more money for farmers to try new conservation practices.

Here’s UC Cooperative Extension Cropping Specialist Dr. Jeff Mitchell.

Mitchell…”These kinds of connected, market-driven, outcome-based arrangements are being looked at at a number of places, truly, around the country, for sure, and probably around the world as well. So how do you bring farmers together with buyers in a way that recognizes the sustainable or the regenerative or conservation practices that farmers are implementing and the costs that are associated with them, and rewarding them or rewarding them for those initiatives that they're taking?”

The natural question that arises in this conversation is: who pays? Ultimately, Dr. Mitchell says, probably some sort of a marketplace.

Mitchell… ““But what are the best mechanisms to pull that off? Is it a slightly higher price per pound and in the example of cotton? Is it incentives up front to enable farmers to do even more? Those are the kinds of, 'how do we get this done' nitty gritty details that we hope to start talking about.”