Yakima Family Farmers: Farmers showing strong progress in environmental leadership

Farmers have been growing food for as long as there has been family, friends and neighbors to eat it. But now, as our population shifts to our cities, food consumers are farther away from their farmers than ever. At the same time, consumers have lots of questions about how their food is grown and produced.

We have a great story to tell those who enjoy what we produce, including about progress in environmental performance. Here are a few quick examples:

Farmers of all types have greatly reduced the amount of water used to make food. Dairy farmers have reduced water use by about 60 percent since the 1950s per pound of milk produced. Farmers raising crops, including feed crops for cows, have switched from inefficient irrigation to more efficient forms such as center pivot. Fruit farmers are using micro-drip irrigation, which improves efficiency from 50 or 60 percent to over 90 percent.

Farmers use of multiple crops and no- or minimal-till practices to build organic matter, prevent erosion and conserve water. Soil acidification is recognized as a growing problem resulting from years of commercial fertilizer. Applying cow manure helps restore the soil and avoiding having to use lime.

Over-application of fertilizers with heavy rain or irrigation resulted in higher levels of nitrate in years gone by. Farmers now know that applying nutrients at agronomic rates protects soil and groundwater, and may help reduce costs. Farmers are using technical experts and new technologies to map fields, improve soil testing and help ensure proper nutrient application.

As more farmers respond to market demand for organic foods, cow manure from our dairies becomes more important. This organic fertilizer is in increasing demand and estimates are one-third to one-half of manure produced by Yakima Valley cows is exported off the farm as organic fertilizer.

Scientists concerned about climate change point to the role of animal agriculture in contributing to greenhouse gases. Extensive research by the University of California Davis shows that beef cows contribute 2.2 percent and dairy cows just 1.37 percent of greenhouse gases.

Even more important, the remarkable productivity of our dairy farmers means we produce far less greenhouse gases per pound of milk than farmers in other countries. Our farmers are twice as efficient as Mexican dairy farmers, for example, and a dairy farmer in India contributes nine times more greenhouse gases per pound of milk produced than our farmers.

Our farmers are doing more than ever to improve our sustainability and environmental performance while continuing to feed the world and compete in a global marketplace. Getting our very positive story to our friends and customers in our urban areas is more important than ever.

We invite and encourage those who want to know more about how their food is produced to visit a farm or get information from farm outreach efforts like Yakima Family Farmers and Save Family Farming.

This story was originally published April 1, 2018 at 6:10 PM with the headline "Yakima Family Farmers: Farmers showing strong progress in environmental leadership."