Interested in payments for reducing field phosphorus loss? Make sure your NMP is updated!
By Sonia Howlett, VT Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets began 2022 by opening applications for the Vermont Pay for Phosphorus (VPFP) program, a new and innovative program that provides performance-based payments to Vermont farmers for reducing phosphorus (P) losses from their agricultural fields. While most current conservation programs pay cost-share for practice implementation, VPFP pays for the outcomes of practices: it recognizes that conservation practices generate value to the public and directly compensates farms for that value. This approach also targets our water quality resources towards the highest impact farms and fields – those that can do the most to minimize nutrient loss into waterways.
Farms that enrolled in the VPFP program worked closely with their Technical Service Provider (TSP) or local Conservation District earlier this spring to enter their farm management data into a new web-application called Farm Phosphorus Reduction Planner (FarmPREP) that uses Vermont soil and weather data to estimate annual P losses from runoff from farm fields. By using FarmPREP, farmers can get a glimpse into how each of their individual farm fields adds to their total P-loss and plan how best to target conservation efforts to maximize their P-reductions. Farms that implement conservation practices across their farmland like cover crops, buffers, crop rotations, nutrient management planning, rotational grazing, no-till and reduced tillage may be able to use FarmPREP to show that they have achieved significant reductions in P-loss on their fields since adopting those practices. Reductions measured in FarmPREP represent improvements in farm management compared to the assumed management in the Lake Champlain Basin Total Maximum Daily Load (LCB TMDL).
Fifty-three enrolled farms, which ranged in size from around 30 acres to almost 3,000 acres, successfully entered all their management data into FarmPREP this spring. Forty-nine of these farms are eligible to receive a P payment once they update their FarmPREP results to reflect their actual 2022 management this fall and winter.
First time VPFP enrollees, regardless of their P-reductions, are eligible for a data entry payment of $15 per farmed acre (up to $4,000) to compensate them for the time to work with a TA provider to enter their management data into FarmPREP. Farms that show that they have achieved more than a 40% reduction in P-loss are eligible to receive $100 per pound of phosphorus reductions per year, up to an annual cap of $50,000. Additionally, farms that show they have a low average annual P-loss under 1 lb P/acre or 0.5 lbs P/acre are also eligible to receive a stewardship payment of $3 or $8/acre, respectively.
The Agency will open applications for 2023 enrollment in December. To be eligible to apply, you must manage hay, crop, or pasture land in Vermont, ensure that your farm business is registered with the USDA Farm Service Agency, and have an up-to-date Nutrient Management Plan that meets the RAPs for their farm size, including recent soil and manure tests.
Behind on your soil and manure tests, but interested in the VPFP program? Take your tests now so you are ready to apply to the program this winter!
For more information on the Vermont Pay for Phosphorus program contact Brodie Haenke at Brodie.Haenke@vermont.gov or 802-636-7852.
The Vermont Pay for Phosphorus Program is supported by the US Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service, under a Regional Conservation Partnership Program Alternative Funding Arrangement with VAAFM.