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Healthy Soil Equals a Healthy Bottom Line for Midwest Farmers

October 20, 2015
National Corn Growers Association helps spur innovative solutions for eco-friendly farming

Dave Moose and his family have grown corn in Auburn, Illinois, for half a century. After decades of farming, he knows the foundation for a successful crop is healthy soil. So, to keep his soil ripe for corn growing, he’s leaving it unturned and letting cover crops replenish and recycle its nutrients and fight off the weeds for him. And by cultivating healthy soil on his farm, Dave is helping maintain a thriving ecosystem that supports plants, animals and people in the Midwest.

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Across the country, farmers are looking for innovative ways to manage their fields that help keep nutrients in the ground year long – resulting in better crops and healthier rivers and streams. In Indiana, corn grower Mike Long has also stopped tilling his crops, instead sprinkling them with the recommended amount of poultry manure and rotating a blend of cover crops to lock in soil health. “I didn’t like what I was witnessing with a conventional cropping system – erosion, nutrient runoff and the depletion of earth worms and organic matter in our soils.” So he changed.

To encourage more farmers to improve the way they grow corn, the National Corn Growers Association launched the Soil Health Partnership (SHP) with support from the Walton Family Foundation. The SHP is recruiting farmers like Dave and Mike to showcase for other growers how new soil management practices can benefit their business and the surrounding environment. For Mike, he joined the SHP “to get a better idea of the economic benefits and hopefully encourage other producers in our area to adopt practices that support a sustainable future of soil health and water quality.”

While new to the Soil Health Partnership, Dave and Mike are longtime believers in the potential for new soil management practices to support farmers’ livelihoods and the environment. “We converted 35 years ago. No-till (and cover crops) are an excellent labor saver and we saw right away the cost savings,” Dave explained. “But the biggest thing for us was really the environmental benefits – less erosion and runoff. Just better soil health overall.”

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