Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
coordinator for the university, wrote her dissertation about area-wide
pest management in Wisconsin potatoes. Recently the university team
began investigating how to best manage non-crop areas for farm pest
management and wildlife habitat. The International Crane Foundation
is now working with Sexson to determine how Healthy Grown potatoes
could include habitat conservation for endangered sandhill cranes,
and arrange for Protected Harvest to certify these as ecosystem
standards.
In addition, Deana Sexson and her team are now turning their systems
approach to soil ecosystems. Since Wisconsin potato growers use a lot of
soil fumigants for diseases, the partnership identified this as the next
major issue to tackle. Sexson and others are trying to determine how soil
improvement strategies could reduce reliance on fumigants, and has set
the ambitious goal of helping reduce their use by 50 percent by 2007. She
hopes to create a list of management options, such as tillage, nitrogen
and other fertilizers, cover cropping systems, deep rooted systems, and
other cultural practices.
The Wisconsin potato partnership helped the WWF realize the value of
engaging agriculture. As a global conservation organization, they know
that simply driving agriculture out of the United States with environmen-
tal regulatory pressure will only result in the further loss of wildlands in
the developing world, where even fewer regulations are in place. Keeping
US agriculture viable while reducing its impacts results in net global envi-
ronmental progress. The WWF's constructive engagement with the
Wisconsin potato partnership has persuaded them that it is possible to
have a positive impact on conventional agriculture, especially by creat-
ing incentives to eliminate the most environmentally problematic
practices. As an organization, the WWF understands that growing food
without any pesticides is unrealistic, but that it is possible to create
incentives to move a group of willing growers along the bioIPM
continuum. Like many other partnerships initiated by non-farming
organizations seeking to improve stewardship in agriculture, the WWF
has learned the value and power of working with commodity organiza-
tions. The WWF has been able to raise the issue of pollution prevention
to the national agricultural policy stage.
Lynch and the WWF are particularly pleased that the Wisconsin potato
partnership has been able to move beyond merely pesticide reduction.
