“Both sides of my family were farmers,” said Brandon Cain, a Central Arkansas farmer who now farms about 1,650 acres of ground between West Point and Griffithville, two towns of less than 200 people. His father and paternal grandfather farmed, as did his maternal grandfather and uncle, who he started working for as a teen.

“When I got to be about 15 or 16 years old, old enough to really do something. I started working for him on the farm until I went out on my own,” Cain said. “In 2003, I was able to rent some ground and started my own operation.”

Today, many of his neighbors grow rice, but Cain rotates corn and soybeans, which he says require less equipment and time in the field. With an extra boost of Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) investment, Cain has not only gotten out of rice but transitioned from regular tillage to minimum-till farming.

“These are practices that we might not have started without the CSP contract,” he said. “It all takes a little extra money, and a little extra effort,” he said.

Minimum tillage allows Cain to plant earlier, leading to higher yields. “It’s really made our average yield go way up,” he said. And a higher yield means more crops can make it to market.

It also saves on expenses. “Because we’re not making as many trips across the field, we’re saving labor, we’re saving time,” he said. “There isn’t as much equipment, and we’re still farming the same amount of ground.” 

The program offers both financial and technical assistance to producers.

CSP technical assistance helped Cain implement grid sample testing on his land to apply variable rates of fertilizer, saving money on input costs. Soil sampling in a grid pattern throughout a field allows Cain to fine-tune a nutrient prescription for each field section. “It’s putting the nutrients where they need to be instead of overapplied or underapplied for a specific spot,” he said. “It’s just a more efficient way to do it.”

CSP is the largest conservation program for working lands in the U.S. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed by the 117th Congress and signed by the Biden-Harris administration in 2022, bolstered USDA conservation programs with $19 billion over five years, allowing more farmers to learn and implement farming practices to improve their bottom lines and reap environmental benefits.

Cain understands why some farmers hesitate to change what they do. Many have been tilling their entire life. “You’ve just got this uncertainty of, is this going to work or not?” he said. “In agriculture today, you can’t afford to stub your toe. You mess up on 100 acres, there’s your career.” But, he encourages farmers to work with USDA to understand the best programs and grants for their farming operations.

Strong proposals address “several resource concerns,” but Cain warned farmers to be realistic in their proposals. “Don’t sign up for something that you don’t really anticipate doing,” he said,

For his next CSP contract, Cain is expanding his practices by using multiple species of cover crop. Species diversity can increase soil health benefits. To avoid purchasing expensive equipment, Cain uses aerial application of cover crop seeds into standing corn immediately before harvest. After harvest, Cain waits for rain to germinate the cover crop that will protect the soil for the following months.

.Most of the dryland farms in the area have been improved through large water management projects using the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

EQIP money has helped fund tailwater recovery systems, precision land leveling, and reservoirs, allowing farmers to capture rainwater and nutrients that run off the field.

That nutrient-rich water is stored and pumped back onto the fields through irrigation systems. “It’s a big cycle,” said Cain. “We’re not wasting water, and we’re able to catch every bit of runoff that comes off our fields.

Much of Cain’s ground is already enriched by these systems, but he recently applied for his first EQIP project. An unplanted corner of a field will soon be a rainwater reservoir used to irrigate surrounding cropland.

EQIP support was essential to reinforcing a replicable pattern of  efficiency and sustainability to many Central Arkansas Farmers. “A guy that’s just out here farming dryland ground and trying to get by irrigating, you know, we wouldn’t ever be able to afford to build the reservoir, because we’re just not generating enough income to pay for it,” said Cain.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed by the 117th Congress and signed by President Biden, is a piece of federal legislation that aims to reduce inflation by lowering the cost of prescription medications, investing in domestic energy production, and promoting clean energy, among other objectives.