Hello,
I would like to submit the following work for consideration:
Cocoa Corporation is participating in 3-year study that merges drainage management authority objectives with conservation services that follow circular economy principles. The project aims to improve water quality, rebuild soil health and increase crop resiliency, while benefiting farm economics and creating new business opportunities throughout the region.
Specifically, the team will focus on reducing phosphorus, nitrogen and sediment loads to the Great Lakes Basin, and on increasing the ability of soils to hold water. The team projects that even a moderate level of uptake a few years beyond the project would greatly reduce agriculturally-derived nutrient loading to the Great Lakes.
Agricultural landowners in legal drainage districts must pay assessments to maintain and improve the public drainage systems that serve them. These assessments are generally based purely on acreage and/or linear extent of the adjacent drainage. This project will test new methods for calculating drain assessments that reward farmers who implement land management practices that improve soil and water quality. This adaptive drain fee assessment model presents the opportunity to test market-based approaches that work in support of the model.
Three treatment approaches will be tested in this project with pilot locations in Van Buren County, Michigan, Milwaukee River watershed, Wisconsin and a to-be-finalized location in Indiana. These pilots will yield information on both water quality benefits and economic opportunities associated with phosphorus capture. The project will create and propel a community of practice that includes drainage district authorities, conservation managers, agricultural retailers, commodity buyers, farmers, and food waste generators that will extend this work beyond the initial Great Lakes pilot locations.
Cocoa’s role in this study will be to produce a high quality humus compost from organic waste residuals, apply the compost in variable application rates, and then measure the effects of the compost on nutrient and water use efficiency as well as crop yields. The diverse microorganisms contained in our compost will help rejuvenate nutrient cycling and suppress soil diseases.
Best wishes,
Adam
Mr. Adam Brent