FC's Role with the ACWA

FC’s Role with the ACWA (Agriculture's Clean Water Alliance)

FC’s sole purpose is to serve the farmers who own our cooperative. Part of that service is to help ensure the sustainability of agriculture as a way of providing food, fuel and fiber for the growing world. Success demands that we continue our proud tradition of leaving our land and water in better shape for future generations. FC is committed to assisting its farmer members in this mission.

FC is a founding member of Agriculture’s Clean Water Alliance (ACWA) - a nonprofit organization created in 1999 by 13 Ag retailers with the common goal of keeping products intended to help crops thrive - like fertilizer and chemicals - out of local and downstream waters.

Despite the fact that all ACWA members are direct competitors, we work together toward our dual mission to help farmers improve agronomic performance in the field while supporting environmental performance beyond the field’s edge. The organization’s extensive water monitoring network is unique in that it is almost completely funded by the private Ag-industry for the benefit of both public and private stakeholders.

More than $1 million has been spent monitoring water since the project began. Though monitoring remains ACWA’s cornerstone, the organization has branched out to nutrient-reducing efforts like funding tile-line bioreactors to filter out contaminants and encouraging farmers to embrace conservation practices to reduce runoff.

ACWA Chairman Harry Ahrenholtz says water quality is improving. “To be sure, ACWA has made significant contributions to the clean water effort through its ongoing work,” says Ahrenholtz.

 A few of ACWA’s successes:

-- ACWA funded the first successful real-time, in-stream nitrate analyzer in Iowa in the Raccoon River near Van Meter.

--- Since the ACWA began, the sediment load in the Raccoon River has dropped, suggesting conservation practices like no-till and grass waterways are working.

What is the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy?

ACWA members have put their full support behind the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, which relies on voluntary efforts rather than top-down regulation, along with greater adoption and implementation of proven, farm-based efforts including those developed by the alliance.  

Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy is a science and technology-based framework to assess and reduce nutrients to Iowa waters and ultimately, to the Gulf of Mexico. It is designed to direct efforts to reduce nutrients in surface water from both point and nonpoint sources in a scientific, reasonable and cost effective manner.

Working together, the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and the Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences developed this strategy. The focus is on a pragmatic approach for reducing nutrient loads discharged from the state’s largest wastewater treatment plants, in combination with targeted practices designed to reduce loads from nonpoint sources such as farm fields.

The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy is the first-of-its-kind framework for reducing nutrient loads discharged from the state’s largest wastewater treatment facilities, in combination with targeted practices to reduce loads from non-point sources, including agriculture. The plan establishes a goal of at least a 45-percent reduction each in total riverine nitrogen and phosphorous loadings.  

The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy prioritizes the top watersheds in Iowa and focuses resources to make improvements in coordination and cooperation with landowners. Iowa State University has developed a technical assessment of the best management practices available to reduce nutrients, their effectiveness and implementation costs.

ACWA members believe that on-farm water quality improvement practices already being implemented by farmers - including bioreactors, wetlands, buffer strips, cover crops, conservation tillage and nutrient management - will be even more fully adopted as part of the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.

 

FC Member Mike Bravard is Making a Difference

FC, as a founding member of the ACWA, encourages members in their environmental stewardship; supporting a sustainable model.

Producers like FC member, Mike Bravard who farms near Jefferson, IA are working hard to take care of the land and water that sustain their way of life. “Farmers in general take the issues concerning the land and water around them very seriously,” said Bravard. “The issues are complex, and those of us on the farm and in the city are all in this together. The solutions will come from a combined effort among all those with a vested interest.”

When approached about installing a bioreactor on his land several years ago, Mike Bravard was more than willing. “The bioreactor installation resulted in a significant reduction in the nitrate levels in that watershed. Results from efforts like this, when combined, make a significant difference,” notes Bravard.

“I believe that farmers are doing their part and are willing to do more".

Concerted efforts will make a difference.  Farming today is about finding new and better ways of producing more with less of a footprint. It’s about taking care of the resources that make it possible to provide food and fuel for our growing world,” said Bravard.”

Bioreactors such as the one on FC member, Mike Bravard’s land, are examples of cost-effective and voluntary solutions for improving water quality while maintaining farm profitability. The monitoring of bioreactors like this one has documented a 40-60% reduction in nitrates from tile drainage before it hits the stream.

 

Fast Facts:

 

50%

-- A three-year project in the Brushy Creek Watershed resulted in a 50 percent reduction in E. coli bacteria measured at Dedham

30%

--- Data indicates nitrate levels in the Raccoon River have dropped, possibly as much as 30 percent, since 2001.

 

 

To learn more about FC’s efforts through the ACWA, please go to www.acwa-rrws.org.

For more information on efforts being made in Iowa, go to Iowa Department of Agriculture & Land Stewardship’s website www.cleanwateriowa.org.