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Dr. Ben West with UT Extension is heading up an initiative called Farmers For Soil Health. the goal of the initiative is to help make climate smart practices profitable for farmers.
Thomas Capps
Practicing sustainability and finding new ways to be profitable. Hello and welcome to Tennessee Home and Farm Radio. I’m Thomas Capps.
Ben West
Sustainability, while the term may be new, farmers have worried about sustainability since the Dust Bowl.
Thomas Capps
Sustainability continues to be at the forefront of minds in the ag industry. Farmers in large part have and continue to implement climate friendly practices on their operations. Dr. Ben West with UT Extension has spent years studying climate smart practices farmers are using. Now he’s focusing on ways those practices can be profitable for farmers by heading up an initiative called Farmers For Soil Health.
Ben West
Its sustainability and Agriculture Initiative run by the three three of the biggest commodity organizations in the country, the United Soybean Board, the National Corn Growers Association, and the National Pork Board. They decided about three years ago, to collaborate together and really try and be aggressive with some sustainability initiatives and put farmers in the driver’s seat of driving the conversation and the thought and action around sustainability. Farmers have always taken the leadership role and sustainability. But sometimes in the past, it’s been tough to pay for it because some of these practices do cost money. And at the end of the day, farmers are running a business enterprise.
Thomas Capps
West says it just makes sense for our farmers to get paid to plant cover crops and other practices they’re already doing.
Ben West
By being able to combine federal money that’s been coming down the pike but now also, the growing influx of private money from food companies and biofuel companies and feed companies interested in helping farmers be more and more aggressive with their sustainability practices. I mean, the next 10 years in agriculture is a really exciting time to see what’s going to come of all this collective collaboration and conservation in agriculture.
Thomas Capps
Sustaining the planet and farming for the next generation. For Tennessee Home and Farm Radio. I’m Thomas Capps.
