Jim Fitkin

What are you doing to practice and promote soil and water quality?

For water and soil quality, I plant beans no-till into corn stubble that was seeded with a rye cover crop the previous fall. This practice improves water infiltration into the soil, reduces the need for herbicides and sequesters carbon in the soil.

What is being done in your county to support soil and water quality?

I have noticed neighbors adopting similar practices. And I have had conversations with farmers telling them of my successes. And telling them of the funding that is available for these practices.

What could be done with more public funding for soil and water quality?

I think that additional funding might best be used to inform the public on agriculture's positive influence on our soil and water. Because they aren't getting that message. In some of my conversations with people outside of agriculture, they tell me that they are being told of agriculture harming our environment and the need for additional government regulations to solve it.