Are farmers stewards

Are farmers stewards

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
I had a question for Conservation Basics consultant/owner and Chesterfield rancher Chris Banks. "As a rancher and a conservationist consultant, how much do you think modern farmers and ranchers are invested in the stewardship of their own land? There has been a paradigm shift in the last 5 to 10 years and the perception of, we have to take care of the land, has come about for two reasons. One I would say, I like to call them social directives. It's the outside world looking at ag saying hey, you got cows standing in the stream, we see you've got manure floating down into water bodies, so you have outside eyes looking at us and I think that caused a paradigm shift and that people are more aware of that now and they are trying to be better about it. But the other thing that I have seen is, and maybe it's a generational thing and I'm not trying to offend anybody but it seems that the attitude of I am going to take care of this better, there are new options out there to try and improve the way that we grow crops, manage our soil health, the way we applied fertilizer and water, and I think people are latching on to those new ideas and they are finding that they are working and improving their bottom line over time. I also think that the agricultural and conservation communities together are starting to speak up a little bit."
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