Arkansas Discovery Farms: Empowering Producers and Stakeholders in Environmental Solutions.

Arkansas agriculture faces several critical environmental and natural resource issues ranging from excess nutrient concerns associated with poultry production in Northwest Arkansas to critical groundwater decline and sediment loss issues associated row crop production in the Mississippi Delta region of Eastern Arkansas.  To help engage and empower stakeholders to address these critical resource issues, we implemented the Arkansas Discovery Farm Program, which we modeled after a similar effort in Wisconsin.   The program includes a stakeholder advisory committee consisting of representatives from farm / producer organizations and from the Nature Conservancy.  We also utilize a technical advisory committee that consists of representatives from local, state and federal conservation and environmental agencies.  In partnership with these committees, we are monitoring water use and runoff water quality for nutrients and sediments from the edge-of-fields on six farms in Arkansas and evaluating potential improvement strategies if needed.  These include: 1) a poultry operation in Northwest Arkansas where we are monitoring runoff from around production houses, 2) a beef cattle operation in Central Arkansas, 3) a rice-soybean-corn operation in Stuttgart where we are evaluating water management and irrigation strategies, 4) a rice-soybean operation in Northeastern Arkansas and 5) a cotton operation in Southeastern Arkansas where we will investigate the use of cover crops to reduce erosion and suppress herbicide-resistant pigweed.  An overivew of the program and the issues that are being addressed via edge-of-field monitoring of runoff water for sediments and nutrients.  On row crop farms, we are monitoring both the infow and outflow of water.