Arkansas Farm Bureau leaders, along with scientists and researchers from the University of Arkansas, recently traveled to Wisconsin to learn more about that state’s Discovery Farm program.

Discovery Farms are working farms used as environmental laboratories to help determine appropriate environmental regulations. Set up in different geographic areas, each farm faces different environmental challenges and allows real-life farm practices to be evaluated and studied from an environmental standpoint.

By giving researchers full access to their farms for testing purposes, the farmers who participate in the Discovery Farm effort are improving the environment for everyone in Wisconsin. Bringing real farmers together with the research community also helps set realistic environmental policy in that state.

After touring these Discovery Farms in Wisconsin, it’s obvious the program introduces a dose of reality into environmental regulation and some common sense that is acceptable to everyone interested in our surroundings, from the agricultural community to environmental activists.

Through our tour, we wanted to see if the concepts being refined in Wisconsin could be adapted to Arkansas. As most of you know, our state is currently facing litigation from the Oklahoma attorney general over “impaired” water quality on the Illinois River. That litigation alleges some very harmful activities are taking place on Arkansas farms that apply poultry litter.

Though agricultural practices play a role in today’s environmental confluence, we don’t believe they contribute nearly as much to the water-quality issue as others might suggest.

Independent data, such as that collected and evaluated through the Discovery Farm project, will allow agriculture to validate real-life environmental issues surrounding the application of poultry litter, rather than let regulators make assumptions based on predictive modeling.

With the enthusiasm University of Arkansas officials show — and with Arkansas Farm Bureau’s full backing — I believe this program can be of great benefit to our state. However, we will need to locate the funding for such an effort.

In Wisconsin, the program costs about $800,000 a year, and the money comes from a combination of state sources, agribusiness and commodity check-off programs. I think we can align a similar combination of funding sources here in Arkansas.

When they developed and implemented Wisconsin’s Discovery Farm effort, the need to provide credible information to the public, their legislative audience and the environmental community was the first order of business.

Because of the open nature of the data — it is public record — and of the third-party United States Geological Survey’s administration of the testing, the credibility of the Wisconsin effort is above reproach. We were told that when the Wisconsin state Legislature considers environmental regulations, it wants to know what the data from the Discovery Farms reveals about the issue. After touring that state’s Discovery Farms, I was left with three overriding thoughts:

1. As farmers, we feel we are the original environmentalists. Every day, we earn our livelihood by maintaining our natural resources and being good stewards of the environment. We want to validate that our farming practices are environmentally sound.

2. Farmers want to do the right thing. If we’re doing something determined to be unsound, as environmental stewards, we want to adjust our farming practices so that we can take better care of water and other natural resources.

3. It pays to be efficient. By knowing the amount of nutrients that are leaving his farm, a farmer can adjust his practices to better conserve nutrients, conserve the soil and prevent sediment and erosion. With the high price of fertilizer, it is imperative that nutrients be retained on a farmer’s land for agronomic uses.

All of this is a win-win for farmers and the environmental community.

By being involved with information-gathering tours such as this one, Farm Bureau can help provide direction and insight to the agricultural community. Our policy encourages farmers to comply with all environmental regulations. At the same time, Farm Bureau is committed to helping farmers improve the profitability of their operations.

It was clear after touring the Discovery Farms that it’s possible to be good stewards of the environment and at the same time enhance farm profitability.

Every farmer I know wants to be a responsible citizen. By assessing the latest science to adjust and validate on-farm best-management practices, those in agriculture can do their part to provide better-quality water and an improved quality of life for everyone around them.

We in Farm Bureau certainly believe sound science is the key to developing common-sense environmental regulations — ones that allow us a profit on our farms and, at the same time, enable us to be good stewards of the environment.