What doesn’t stay on farmlands can easily end up in nearby waterways and in the air we breathe.
Cover crops like annual ryegrass have become friends of the environment. Imagine living in an era when farmers and environmental advocates are standing side to side to champion cover crops.
- Green Lands, Blue Waters is an effort to save the Great Lakes, major U.S. rivers and the Gulf of Mexico from pollutants that are killing our fresh water.
- The Sierra Club has goals about how agriculture must be carried out in an environmentally sound manner. Among them, number 7 from the top is this: Agriculture must promote the use of cover crops and perennial crops to protect soils from erosion and protect water resources from nutrient runoff and leaching.
- The federal Environmental Protection Agency says this: Growing cover crops is a beneficial practice to reduce nutrient and sediment losses from agricultural fields and improve water quality. Cover crops also increase soil health through enhancing soil organic matter content.
- And click here to read what the U.S.D.A. says about benefits of cover crops.
Finally, until recently, crop insurance was in jeopardy when farmers decided to protect their land with annual ryegrass or another cover crop. But, because of the results of improved soil biology and crop productivity, because of pressure from the agricultural and environmental communities, the laws have now been changed to allow crop insurance on cover crops.
Show up with results…and you can move mountains…well, in this case, fix unhealthy soils and weak profits, while saving the purity of our fresh water and air.