Conclusions and Recommendations
As Plain farmers continue to comprise a larger fraction of the farming sector (Donnermeyer et al. 2013; Cross 2015) and agricultural market economy (Lutz 2017), they will have an increasing role to play in addressing nutrient loading issues in water bodies abutting large Plain populations, i.e., Lake Erie and the Chesapeake Bay. Although many Plain producers have Creation Care ethics and have historically been leaders in some areas of land stewardship (Brock and Reschly 2016), these ethics may not necessarily be lived through adoption of common conservation BMPs. In fact, awareness levels of water quality concerns and conservation practice adoption were lower for the Amish in Berne, Indiana than the non-Amish for every conservation BMP except cover crops (Ulrich-Schad et al. 2017). Awareness of conservation issues and adoption of conservation practices can sometimes be lower on smaller farms (Parker 2013; Perry-Hill and Prokopy 2015). The conservation literature illustrates the important role access to relevant information and connections to agencies have in conservation awareness and practice implementation (Baumgart-Getz et al. 2012). Thus, this study was an important contribution to the scant literature on Plain conservation awareness and adoption, as it focused on information exchange of public sector agricultural professionals working with Plain producers.
Public sector agricultural professionals working with Plain farmers across a variety of settings focusing on nutrient, manure, and pasture management concerns counter numerous challenges. According to public sector agricultural professionals, some of the Plain farmers had issues such as too many livestock units in a small area creating excess manure and nutrient management problems as well as worn down pastures, which confirms other research (Penn and Bryant 2006); Perry-Hill and Prokopy 2015; (Kogelmann et al. 2006). Public sector agricultural professionals discussed how technological restrictions, costs and reluctance to change could be inhibiting factors to adoption of conservation practices. Farmer interviews highlighted these same issues with perhaps more emphasis on the lack of time as juggling non-farm jobs can be a constraint to adopting conservation practices (Parker 2013). According to survey results in the same area forty-five percent of farmers indicated that time was a challenge for nutrient management plans. Cost (38%) and lack of equipment/ technology (40%) were also barriers for nutrient management plans (Ulrich-Schad et al. 2017).
