Webinars

September 2023 CRP Outcomes Webinar: Understanding Factors Affecting the Participation of Underserved Landowners in the Conservation Reserve Program in the Southern United States - Progress and Preliminary Results

Monday, Sept. 18, 2023, at 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm Eastern Time

Presenter: Dr. Puneet Dwivedi, Associate Professor (Sustainability Sciences), Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA

Project Abstract: Only a tiny portion of currently enrolled underserved landowners are a small percentage of all the land enrolled in the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) nationwide. To achieve the objectives of environmental justice and to meet the standards of the Justice40 program, we need to increase the participation of underserved landowners in CRP. However, a limited understanding of the issues faced by underserved landowners is adversely affecting their participation in CRP and restricting options for improving policy prescriptions. In this context, our project aims to develop a nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by underserved landowners and to formulate solutions for overcoming barriers to increase their participation in CRP. As a part of the webinar, Dr. Dwivedi will deliberate upon the achievements of the latest project supported by the USDA-FSA (starting October of 2022), specifically focusing on landowner outreach workshops across six southern states, ongoing mail survey, development of an online outreach and educational tool, and planned in-person interviews of various stakeholder groups, including landowners. He will also present initial research findings based on literature synthesis and the data collected during the landowner outreach workshops focusing on issues affecting underserved landowners' participation in the CRP across the southern states.

Dr. Puneet Dwivedi is an Associate Professor (Sustainability Science) at the University of Georgia Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. His specialization includes characterizing the decision-making of family rural landowners, modeling ecosystem services, and sustainable bioenergy development. He has published 115 refereed articles in high-impact journals and secured funding of several million dollars to support his research lab at the University of Georgia.

Recording

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Presentation Slides (pdf)

August 2023 CRP Outcomes Webinar: Payments for Ecosystem Services Programs and Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture

Thursday, August 17, 2023, 2:00 to 3:00 pm Eastern Time

Presenter: Youngho Kim, University of Maryland - College Park

Project Abstract: Payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs can enhance long-term crop resilience to extreme weather events in agriculture by establishing nature-based infrastructure, such as forests and wetlands.  This paper empirically examines whether and to what extent the introduction of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) in the United States mitigated flooded crop loss through restoration of riparian buffers and wetlands.  Synthetic control estimates indicate that, on average, CREP reduced the number of flooded crop acres by 39 percent and mitigated the extent of losses on flooded acres by 27 percent during the first 11 years of program implementation.  A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the conservation investments made through CREP protected an estimated total of 900,000 crop acres from flooding and generated financial spillover effects on the federal crop insurance program, saving $73 million in indemnity payouts that would have been paid to insured farmers in the absence of CREP during the same period.  The loss mitigation benefits vary spatially and temporally depending on the duration of program availability, the extent of program participation, and the adoption of alternative loss mitigation strategies.  Overall, these findings provide empirical evidence supporting the efficacy of nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation.

Recording
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Presentation Slides

CRP Outcomes December 2022 Webinar - The habitat quality of CP43: Prairie Strips and other conservation features for birds in Corn Belt agricultural landscapes

Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, 3:00 - 4:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Presenters: Lisa Schulte Moore, Jordan Giese, Matt Stephenson and Robert Klaver

The USDA Conservation Reserve Program and other programs seek to address population declines among grassland wildlife species in working landscapes of the US along with soil and water quality outcomes. To inform program implementation, the team investigated the environmental variables driving bird occupancy and passerine nest success in extensively row cropped landscapes of Iowa. The researchers provide evidence that vegetation diversity had positive effects on bird presence and/or reproductive success, and that habitat configuration remains an important predictor of breeding bird demographic parameters even after accounting for habitat acres on the landscape. Research further found that terraces and contour strips composed of cool-season grasses may be population sinks or ecological traps for grassland breeding passerines in the landscapes studied. While prairie contour strips (e.g., CP43) offered similar reproductive success to larger patches of restored prairie, larger tracts of grassland habitat are still necessary to support area-sensitive species.

Presenter, Dr. Lisa Schulte Moore, is a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management and co-director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State University. She conducts research and teaches in the areas of agriculture, ecology, forestry and human-landscape interactions. Her research addresses the integration of continuous living cover into agricultural landscapes to support new markets and to meet societal goals for clean water, healthy soils, abundant wildlife and inspiring recreational opportunities. Dr. Schulte Moore is co-founder of the Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips (STRIPS) project, which strives more fully understand the assembly, management, function, and value of prairie strips. A full bio can be found here: https://www.nrem.iastate.edu/people/lisa-schulte-moore.

Recording

Presentation Slides

CRP Outcomes July 2022 Webinar: Using Remote Sensing and Machine Learning to Map Vegetation on Conservation Reserve Program Lands

Thursday, July 14, 2022, 3:00 - 4:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Presenter: Rebecca Degagne, Senior Geospatial Scientist, Conservation Biology Institute

The Conservation Biology Institute (CBI) will make a presentation on recent work using the latest remote sensing imagery, machine learning, and the best available training data to characterize vegetation on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands. A rich suite of enviro-climatic data, multiple sources of satellite imagery, and machine learning modeling techniques were deployed on the cloud-computing platform, Google Earth Engine, to maximize the accuracy of predicting land cover for study areas in Washington, Colorado, and Kansas, where CRP Grasslands holdings are most prevalent. A full report of this work can be read at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19141853.v1.

In a parallel project focused on mapping forested CRPs in Mississippi, CBI developed predictive maps of tree height, tree density, biomass, basal area, and forest type using Random Forest modeling. Numerous satellite-derived indices from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 sensors, in addition to soils and topography data, were used as predictor inputs. We then refined these predictive models to increase accuracy by incorporating preliminary data products derived from NASA’s spaceborne LiDAR mission - the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI). A full report of this work can be read at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.19142147.  

Preliminary vegetation cover predictions from CBI’s work have been integrated into an easy-to-use online tool, which allows CRP managers and landowners to view, filter, compare, and summarize information relevant for assessing CRP tracts in the study areas. This baseline information can be a foundation for quantitatively measuring the success of conservation practices over time and guiding strategic management actions.

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Slides

CRP Outcomes May 2022 Webinar: Scaling Saturated Buffer Adoption using the Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework

Thursday, May 19, 2022, 3:00 - 4:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Presenter: Keegan Kult, Executive Director of the Agricultural Drainage Management Coalition

Traditional conservation practice delivery is not equipped to handle the demands of scaled-up implementation needed to meet regional nutrient reduction goals. As evidenced by the low adoption rates to date, this is especially true for practices that require technical knowledge like Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Saturated Buffers. While little work has been done to assess the barriers to adoption from a farmer or landowner’s perspective, experienced practitioners in central Iowa sought to develop a new practice delivery framework that would address as many stakeholder barriers to adoption as possible through the Polk County Saturated Buffer Project. Keegan Kult, Executive Director of the Agricultural Drainage Management Coalition, will discuss piloting a systematic approach to modernize agricultural drainage infrastructure with the goal of accelerating conservation drainage practice adoption within the confines of existing technical and financial assistance programs.

Webinar Recording Link (Temporarily Unavailable)

CRP Outcomes February 2022 Webinar: Providing Pollinator Habitat on Western Conservation Reserve Program Lands