The Hewitt Creek Model is one of the best recent examples of farmers cooperating to develop both incentives and strategies that will improve management of their watershed.
Hewitt Creek, a Hickory Creek tributary, is designated by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as impaired for aquatic life, including invertebrates and fish species. The 23,005 acre Hewitt Creek watershed has 82 farm operators that till nearly 20,000 acres of highly erodible cropland. On relatively small acreages, farmers mostly raise livestock and grow corn and soybeans.
To enable neighbors to learn about conservation practices from one another, residents of Hewitt Creek watershed decided to form a watershed council. With funding from the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Iowa Watershed Improvement Fund, the watershed council has developed a new financial incentive program to encourage farmers to adopt more sustainable practices. Incentives are utilized to spur the use of Best Management Practices that reduce soil runoff into waterways.
These incentives are directly tied to science-based and state agency adopted performance indexes that are calculated on individual fields. Weighted by field acreage to attain a farm index, the 37 cooperating farms are combined for a measure of watershed performance. Incentives are indexed to a baseline level of nutrients, with payments made according to how nutrient levels are reduced over time. In one example of the adoption of a performance-based incentive, eight farmers seeded cover crops using the incentive of $10 per acre for up to 40 acres.
In addition to the partners mentioned above, other participants include USDA CSREES Water Program, Iowa State University Extension, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship IFLMDP and Upper Iowa University. For more information, see the project's website.
