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jumped at least three to four
A .better .loan .rate .or .loan . tons an acre over time and
terms .based .on .confirmed . averages 18 tons to 19 tons in
recent years, more in river-bot-
soil .health .practices .is . tom land, he said.

something .that .can .be . But Kent believes perhaps the
offered .to .a .farmer .in .the . best thing he’s done for the
first .couple .of .years . natural environment has been
building a resilient farm that
—Aria McLauchlan, . . can be profitable for the next
Land .Core generation of farmers. That is,

instead of selling the land for
Land Core Executive Director Aria McLauch- other uses.
lan said that “if a bank gives a farmer a 10-year “One of our biggest problems here is there’ll be
loan, and the farmer has a management plan a 200-acre farm sold and split up into 20 hous-
that includes good soil health practices … the ing lots. So, you have a really nice house built
farmer should be rewarded for that because risk on 10 acres, and then all the people there do is
is reduced … because as you increase the quality mow it. It’s gone then. None of us — real farm-
of the soil you also increase the water holding ers — want to fool with a little piece like that.
capacity, resilience to flood and drought.” It’s unhandy even to go in and make hay off of.”
“Carbon sequestration may take some years to Many farm advocates agree.
start measuring,” she says, “but a better loan
rate or loan terms based on confirmed soil About 2,000 acres of U.S. agricultural land
health practices is something that can be offered per day are converted to other uses, says
to a farmer in the first couple of years.” Mitch Hunter, research director for American
Farmland Trust.
Another option: Save the farm In its update this year on the shrinking U.S.

Kent, the Virginia farmer, said he would be farmland, AFT reported 11 million acres of the
interested in a USDA-run carbon program “as nation’s agricultural land was converted to other
long as there weren’t too many hurdles to jump uses from 2001 to 2016, and Hunter says 6.6
over. I’m sure it would be more of a burden on million acres of forestland was lost in the same
the agency guys than it would be on me,” refer- period. The total, 17.6 million, by comparison,
ring to the department’s likely need to verify exceeds the area of West Virginia and Delaware
what he was doing. combined.
For now, his annual CSP payments “more than Further, such conversions aren’t one-for-one
cover the expenses for things we’re doing. I’m trades. A University of California, Davis study
getting paid for my time,” which includes taking found, for example, that greenhouse gas emissions
nitrate tests, monitoring progress of his CSP per acre for urban areas in Yolo County were 70
plan with NRCS specialists, etc. times greater than for irrigated cropland.

His adoption of soil health, pasture improve-
ments, clean water, nutrient management and
the like also have improved the farm’s produc-
tivity. He estimates his yield on corn silage has

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