TFI weighs in on nutrient trading proposal

Washington-The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) advocates a go-slow approach to nutrient trading programs for farmers, such as the trading market outlined in a study by the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Environmental Research (CIER). The study, Multiple Ecosystem Markets in Maryland, suggests that this approach would have a double environmental benefit by reducing fertilizer runoff into the Chesapeake Bay and combating climate change by keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The nutrient trading would operate alongside markets that sell carbon dioxide credits. Farmers who reduce pollutants below a set level would earn credits that would be sold to other operators, such as sewage and water treatment plants having difficulty meeting environmental targets. TFI responded that the organization supports science-based nutrient trading programs with an acceptable framework geared to minimizing agriculture impacts. “Such trading programs should have well-defined water quality goals resulting from specific environmental indicators of success,” offered TFI spokeswoman Kathy Mathers. “Nutrient trading schemes that encourage idling existing crop or grazing lands or mandating arbitrary inflexible nutrient inputs and passively assume an environmental benefit would be less attractive to farmers and would not be agronomically or scientifically sound,” Mathers emphasized. Actually, noted CIER Director Matthias Ruth, everybody can and should win from these markets. “This could represent an extra revenue stream for farmers, as well as an incentive to use the best nutrient practices that can help clean up the bay and fight climate change,” Ruth insisted. “Taking these conservation steps costs the farmers money, and at the very least a reimbursement for their investment is well-deserved.” Maryland is one of a handful of states considering whether to create these multiple markets. One key question for policymakers is whether farmers who achieve reductions in watershed pollution while also capturing CO2 should be able to sell credits in both markets and, in effect, get dual payments for single action.