Incentive Payments May
Reduce Phosphorus Pollution
With more than 70,000 dairy cows in the Virginia Chesapeake Bay Watershed, the potential for excess nutrients to pollute the
ecosystem is high. An interdisciplinary team of researchers is using $1.7 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service and the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation to offer incentive payments to dairy farmers to reduce phosphorous overfeeding on their farms.
“Every extra gram of phosphorus fed to an animal is excreted,” says Katharine Knowlton, associate professor of dairy science and project leader. “Unlike dietary energy, phosphorus is notstored in the body for later use.”
Phosphorus pollution can trigger eutrophication, an overgrowth of algae in surface water that accelerates the biological death of an aquatic system. The incentives encourage dairy farmers to stop this problem at the source by giving those who are within 15 percent of the national requirement $6 per cow each year. Dairy farmers within 5 percent of the requirement earn twice that much.
“To date we have calculated eligible payments of $33,000 on 51 farms for the first year of the project,” says Charlie Stallings, professor of dairy science. “These farms, along with two groups that have not completed their first year, will have the ability to get payments in the second year as well.”
The program follows almost a decade of research of the nutrient management in Virginia’s dairy industry. Other Virginia Tech dairy
scientists working on the project are Bob James and Mark Hanigan. Rick Kohn, associate professor at the University of Maryland’s
Department of Animal and Avian Sciences, is also on the team.