House Agriculture Committee
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Terry Dabbs
Unverified
0:00
I've been gone the past couple days and I don't know when he'll be back but certainly I've expressed all of our condolences on behalf of the committee and the legislature to him. Hopefully we'll see him back soon. In the meantime they don't leave me much room to mess up. We do have a pretty easy agenda today starting with a guest speaker that we have from the University of Arkansas to speak on Discovery Farms and Mr. Mike Daniels. You'll go ahead and come to the end of the table and recognize yourself and give us a
presentation on your organization, your program, and what they do. Thank you. You're recognized. Thank you. It's
Mike Daniels
Unverified
0:40
my pleasure to be here today. My name is Mike Daniels. I've been employed over 15 years with the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture as an Extension Specialist, working primarily on environmental issues associated with agriculture. Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind at this point, could I recognize some people that are here today in the audience?
Yes, sir, please. Okay. We have one of our Discovery Farmers here actually today, Mr. Terry Dabbs from Stuttgart. We have one of our Technical Advisory Committee members here, Mr. Evan Teague from Farm Bureau. And then we have the Chairman of our Agricultural Stakeholder Committee for Discovery Farms, Mr. Don Alexander, is here. So they agreed to come with us today to show their support for the program. And I'll talk about their involvement a little bit more in this.
What is a discovery farm? A discovery farm is a program that we've invoked, along with our partners and with our farmers, especially with our farmers, to investigate and look at sustainability issues as they relate to environmental issues associated with agriculture, with wise use and conservation of our natural resources, and also from a production and profitability standpoint for our producers. This is a program that, you know, as I've been in this for the last 15 years, looking
at ways that we can better transfer technology to our farmers on environmental issues. We observed a program in Wisconsin, and we came back, and we did not want to launch this program is just a program without having strong partnerships. And so we got Farm Bureau involved in this, and Evan Teague from Farm Bureau helped us. We took a group of Farm Bureau up to Wisconsin, let them talk to their discovery farmers, and asked them, would the farmers of Arkansas want this program? And they came back and did want this program, and so we put it together. We're
actually going to be on farms. Now, there are some foundations to this. This is not a research program that we're doing on our agricultural research experimentation. This is a program that's supposed to be a combination of research and extension. We're doing them on real fields, on real working farms in Arkansas. We want to collect data that shows what the impact that we're having on water quality and water resources specifically. We also want to impact if there are any other practices that might be better from a sustainability
standpoint. And so we're getting on real working farms to do that. The second principle is that we did not want to do this unless we had strong partnerships and really strong ownership from the agricultural community. So in doing that, we put together an agricultural stakeholder committee made up of a lot of different members from different agricultural organizations. And then we also put together a technical advisory committee. And it was a way of bringing together not just agriculture, but natural resource managers
and if you'll notice on our stakeholder committee we do have one slot for the nature conservancy this is a program that we wanted to bring people together we wanted to be transparent and finally the other foundation for this is that we wanted to use state of the art science and collect and be unbiased research based information on which we could build uh... to describe the impacts that arkansas agriculture is having or it could be positive it could be negative uh... and so our farmers that agreed to do this understand that. We certainly wanted to answer our critics about this, that we become transparent
and unbiased. And so we didn't go out and pick the best situations to monitor. We've got four farms established, and I'd like to go through those a little bit. And you see the list of partners. I would name them out, but I'm afraid I'd leave one off. So, but they are printed, and you can see them. But we do have four farms here represented. We have a poultry farm up in northwest Arkansas. We're going to be looking at runoff from around the poultry houses and collecting that and looking at some practices such as a farm pond for collecting that
and keeping that from getting into the White River there in northwest Arkansas. We're also looking at cattle operation in central Arkansas, right on the Arkansas River near Moralton. We're going to be looking at the effects of pasture management and the effects of a natural wetland on retaining and keeping nutrients on farm. So we're looking at poultry and cattle in that situation. But we also have two row crop farms. So this program extends over all parts of agriculture,
except two that I'll mention that we're trying to develop. But in a row crop situation, we're working on Terry Dab's farm, and I'll come back to that because with your permission, I would like for Terry to talk a little bit about what we're doing on his farm why it's important to him if that's okay with
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
5:38
you yes sir that'd be great for the members hopefully you all have your handout i think a good way to do it if you go through and discuss the broader perspectives of of the program may take a few questions over that and then bring up whoever
you'd like to add additional comments and ask questions there now while
Speaker 8
5:55
we're primarily monitoring on these farms and we're putting state-of-the-art equipment on the edge of the field farms,
Mike Daniels
Unverified
6:01
and so any drainage coming off those farms, we're monitoring, but we're looking at sediment and nutrients, and primarily the nutrients we're looking at are nitrogen and phosphorus. Those are the big issues that got a lot of people concerned about the gulf of hypoxia. I mean, the hypoxia issue down in the Gulf of Mexico, that's certainly a driving force for wanting to do this. But let me say, this is a program that we have
found that the farmers have embraced, have taken ownership in, and they want to be very proactive and do this right from the standpoint of a scientific and an unbiased point of view that's why we brought in some of our partners such as the nature conservancy on this on our on our also on our row crop farms we're also looking at water use that's a critical issue Terry Dabbs farm has been in a critical groundwater decline area that was defined by the state for probably 15 years now but we're also up in Cherry Valley area of Cross County
where they've just been designated as a critical groundwater area and they're just now making changes to their farming practices to lessen their dependency on groundwater so that'll offer us a nice contrast there and at that at this time I would be glad to answer any questions that you have about the the program okay members does anybody have any specific questions
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
7:17
here and then we'll We'll get Ms. Dabbs to come up and tell us about the specific operations on her farm. All right.
We'll move on then. If you will, just please state your name for the record and take
Speaker 11
7:41
it away. My name is Terry Dabbs. I'm a rice, soybean, wheat, and corn farmer from Stuttgart. And first of all, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity to come here today and speak to your committee. As Mike said, I got involved with Discovery Farms about five years ago.
I was fortunate to be one of the people that got picked to go on the trip to Wisconsin to look at their farms. And one thing, we wanted this to be a farmer-driven program. So I don't want you to think this is totally a University of Arkansas program. We wanted this to be started by the farmers, and then we wanted to use an unbiased source that had resources to do our testing. So that's how we got the University of Arkansas involved, and they're taking the lead on that side.
As far as my individual farm, as Mike said, I'm in a critical groundwater area. We're going to study water quality and some different cropping rotations in different crops to see what the water use is, say water use in rice versus corn, fair irrigated versus conventional levee irrigation, and some things like that. My farm's kind of unique. It has no groundwater on it. Everything on my farm is surface water.
I have a 350-acre reservoir. I have tailwater ditches, and I capture all the water that lays my farm back into that reservoir. So we're going to study the quality of that water that I'm capturing and reusing again. So I'd be glad to answer
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
9:20
any questions. Members, does anybody have any questions for Mr. Davs? Representative McCrary, you're recognized. the water in
your reservoir i mean i know you you've reused it for five years yes sir and do
you find that uh the nutrients in it are helping your your rice crop
well i don't guess i actually have any way
Speaker 11
9:50
better or is your yield better well i i really have nothing to compare it to since I have no wells on my farm all my water is is that reservoir water so I really don't
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
10:03
have a comparison to know thank you thank you mr. chairman thank you representative Ratliff did you have a
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
10:09
question okay you're recognized your 350 acre reservoirs
that supply all your water you need year-round
Speaker 11
10:18
most years not this past year not this past year You're correct, and I've been farming this farm since this farm actually belongs to my father-in-law. He retired in 1998. That's the year I took over the farm, and in the past 12 years, two years, it has
Speaker 23
10:31
not been enough water. I'm just curious about that. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you.
Representative John Burris
Unverified
10:42
Representative Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I find
Speaker 10
10:47
you said you didn't have any wells. How do you replenish
Speaker 11
10:51
that reservoir? There is a small drainage ditch that runs from the city of Stuttgart, runs right adjacent to this reservoir. And in the wintertime, this time of year, we hope for enough rain, and we fill it up out of that ditch. And then once we get it full, we usually don't get enough in the summertime to replenish any.
So I'm a little nervous right now. It's extremely dry, and I need that reservoir completely full by the 1st of April so I'm assured I've got enough water for my rice crop. Right, and won't
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
11:26
you find that when you do your soil test that you'll notice some differential in your nutrient level? So as Wallace McCray was asking, that would affect the fertilizers you have to apply this crop year? Is that
Speaker 10
11:38
not a good question? Yes, sir, that is a good question, and I do soil test regularly. Every year?
Yes, sir. So if we see some repetitiveness on
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
11:46
some of those nutrients, you'll back off with some of the added fertilizers, I suppose, to help save and make conservation areas. Yes. Thank you.
Representative John Burris
Unverified
11:53
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay. Thank you, Representative Smith. Representative Linderman.
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
12:02
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Debs, first, I want to commend you on all your water being surface water. I think that's something that we all need to look at, and that's very admirable. In that regard, I've got a few questions about that.
Are you receiving any kind of income off of your reservoir such as duck hunting or any other supplemental
Speaker 11
12:22
income to your farm? We do lease our farm for duck hunting, the rice fields, and they are allowed to use the
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
12:32
reservoir for duck hunting. Okay. The next question is, even with that offset, could you give us an estimate of what you you think the reduction is in your income on your farm by using this area for a reservoir
as opposed to using ground water? Well, I can tell
Speaker 11
12:52
you we have one other farm about a half a mile from this farm and it has a deep well on it. It also has reservoirs on it. But if we have to run the deep well, it costs us in the $90 to $100 per acre range just for irrigation costs. out of the reservoir is costing us in the
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
13:14
15 to 20. There was a question about the mineral content and things like that, and I know that salt
buildup on rice fields or in rice fields is a problem. Have you found any of that back in your water in your reservoir, any adverse things, chemicals or anything in your water? No, sir. I haven't noticed any problem with irrigating with
Speaker 11
13:33
the reservoir water. Thank you. And, again, I do want to commend you on using all-surface water. I
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
13:39
think that's very admirable. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Representative Wenderman. Representative Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
13:52
And thank you, Mr. Dabbs, for coming down today. A question that I have is do you use on your fields, I know obviously you said you've used fertilizers. Do you also use any pesticides of any type, and is there any concern that since you're using that water over and over again that the concentration of those chemicals can build up in the water catch and then potentially be released downstream? And a follow-up, do you have any kind of aquatic plants or other conservation going on with the water
to try to improve the quality of that water before you
Speaker 11
14:29
send it back out to the field? No, I don't have anything to improve the quality of that water And I have not noticed Of course, I use normal pesticides on my farm like any farmer does And I have not noticed any problems with reusing this water The reservoir is, I mean, it's full of fish People from town come out and fish in it, use it for recreation But I have not noticed any effects back on my crops Okay.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
14:56
And as part of this program, are they monitoring the levels of the sediments and the chemicals and whatnot
Speaker 11
15:02
in that water, or is that totally outside the scope of? The program is set up, as I understand it in the beginning, we're going to monitor sediments and some nutrients, probably P
Speaker 24
15:12
and K, to start with. Right. And as the program progresses, other nutrients
Representative John Burris
Unverified
15:17
could be added very easily. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank
Speaker 45
15:20
you, Representative Meeks. Representative Patterson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You said that the reservoir was 350 acres? Yes, sir.
How many, on a good year, how many acres do
Speaker 11
15:31
you water with it? About 1,300. And that would be approximately 500 to 600 acres of rice, and then the remainder would be divided, normally it's soybeans, just the last two years we've started growing a little bit
Speaker 11
15:48
that reservoir? The way the land lays the reservoir is probably eight feet on one side and the ground tapers up so there's actually only a levee on three sides.
So it starts at eight foot and then just tapers up to
Speaker 45
16:03
zero. So you said a ditch from the town ran to there, is it one of the main drainage points or
is it just a small drainage part? It's a little bio, the name of it is
Speaker 11
16:18
King's Bio and it's just a little drainage ditch. But the problem is, my grandfather tells me, when they started this farm, my farm is eight miles south of Stuttgart. Between the city of Stuttgart and my farm, there were four pumps in the 50s when he built this reservoir.
Speaker 45
16:34
Today, there are 70. Yeah, that sounds about right, because I drove 30 years around the country working on phone lines, and it was amazing the difference in just a few years on how many wells went down. So, hey, I appreciate everything you're doing, and it
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
16:54
sounds like you're doing some good things. Thank you. Thank you, Representative Patterson. Mr. Daniels, would you like to come back up to the table and join Mr. Davs? I've got a couple questions over the program itself, and then we can take any more that come up.
On page four of your handout, it's the big page. budget and requested funding, I'll admit from the beginning and hopefully not embarrass myself that I know very little about this program, what has started yet, what is operational, what is going on, and what sources of funds do you currently have, and what are you asking for to move forward? Let me answer your first part. We have four
Mike Daniels
Unverified
17:43
implementing those, instrumenting those farms to monitor water quality. Of course, it's anytime you start a runoff study like this, you're bound to see a drought, and you don't collect any water for a while. So that's one of the problems that we face. But we are in the process right now. We're waiting on some specially ordered equipment for our farm in Elkins that's coming out of Georgia that we'll be ready to monitor. We're ready to set up on our eastern Arkansas farms. We just haven't gotten out there to put that in. We're kind of waiting for it to warm up a little bit and a little better field conditions to get into the field to do that with.
The second part of your question, if you don't mind, if I could ask your permission, our vice president for the Division of Agricultures here, Dr. Mark Cochran, and I'd much rather let him address any budget issues than me. Absolutely. You're more
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
18:35
than welcome. Anybody associated with the program, you're more than welcome to come up and talk about their respective area. Hi,
Speaker 51
18:46
I'm Mark Cochran, I'm the Vice President for the Division of Agriculture.
The funding that we have for the four sites, we actually have five farms as we have two farms that are across the Langgee River off of it. We put together some of it from Division of Agriculture funding, some from some of the stimulus funding that was made available to us through ANRC to buy the monitoring equipment. On the cover sheet, you have a list of all the partnering organizations that have made contributions to get us started. We put this together.
Our needs are to cover some of the reoccurring costs in terms of personnel travel and then particularly the water samples. The samples are very expensive for us to run off of it. In addition to that, we would like to add two more farms to this, one with a focus on cotton that we don't currently have in the portfolio and one in forestry. We think that those are both very key additions to the overall program that we have. So the budget that you see there is a combination of the initial startup for the two farm to two additional farms,
plus helping us to cover the reoccurring costs that we would have to run the existing four sites and the two additional sites
Representative John Burris
Unverified
20:00
off of it. So right now it's simply run off private donations?
Speaker 51
20:04
We're running off of private donations and then money from the Division of Agriculture that has already been allocated to us,
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
20:11
yes. Are the private or corporate donations ongoing, or would the state revenue? Some are and some are not. Okay. Can you disclose what the current budget is?
I don't want to put you on the spot, but I didn't know if the $180 annual budget that's requested, is that close to what it is
Speaker 51
20:32
now? It's a little bit lower because the $180 would cover the two additional farms that we've got in off of it. We've hired, this is adding one tech so that we could cover the six farms in the geography of the state. We currently have one that we've hired off of it. So I guess it's kind of a combination between things that we have covered from reoccurring dollars that we have from our consortium here,
and then expanding and covering things that we cannot. This will be
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
21:01
my last question. Members, I'll be happy to take any questions additional that you might have. I may be getting the cart before the horse, but is there any ideas proposed for where this funding could come from the state, any particular division, different agencies? Has anybody kind of jumped up and said this is something we would like to help with? We're starting to work through some of those. Okay. Very good. Members, does anybody else have any additional questions?
Speaker 57
21:29
Yes, sir, Representative Letting. You mentioned that you wanted to add two more farms, one for cotton and one for
Speaker 51
21:39
forestry. Do you have any potential sites that you're looking at? We it's a process of going through because we need to get a site that meets some of the characteristics that we think that would be suitable off of it. And then we also need to have a farmer collaborator that's willing to step forward off of it. So we have some leads, but we don't have anything that's concrete at this point.
Probably the cotton farm would be in the southeast is where we've had those discussions. Forestry, we've got a wider range of opportunities that, you know, 55 percent of the state's land
Speaker 55
22:11
mass is in forestry. So we've got lots of needs and lots of candidates there. Okay. Mr. Daniels,
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
22:20
do you have anybody else that would like to speak about the program? or any additional information. One part of the program I did
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
22:31
mind, go ahead and come to the...
Well, it's okay, it's recorded and we're on TV, so we want to do it right.
Mike Daniels
Unverified
22:37
One part of the program that I did not mention, we are on farm monitoring, but we plan to use these farms as centerpieces for farm tours and education, not just with our farming community, but we also, our farmers will tell you they would like to have some positive, if we find positive things, they would like those to be highlighted with the general public. So we're going to do an educational program with this through extension. But one of the things that we learned very quickly in taking our farmers to Wisconsin,
they listen to other farmers much more readily and much more intently than they do to us. And I understand that. They want to talk to those people that enter into that financial risk every day as they do. And so we're going to utilize these farmers to be spokesmen for this program and have them actually talk at some of our events and programs to educate people on this. The other thing I will say is that we have been able to partner with NRCS in a federal program called the Mississippi River Basin Initiative.
Two of our farms actually were part of their proposals that got funded. So there is some leveraging of some federal dollars. That program, though, for MRBI, that money goes directly to farmers, not to a university or other organizations. We do get some cost recovery through the farmer for providing the service of monitoring. And I want to reiterate what Terry said. This is a farmer-driven program. The university is coordinating the effort, and we're providing the expertise on monitoring and the education.
But it is truly a farmer-driven program that is governed by our stakeholder committee. Thank you all
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
24:19
for being here today. It's certainly been informative. I learned a lot about something I knew little about. Hopefully, as we progress, I'm sure this is something we'll hear a lot more about. And as the request and ideas for funding becomes more closer to the time, I'm sure we'll hear a lot more from you. Does anybody else have any additional questions before we wrap up?
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
24:44
Representative Meeks. Yeah, just one quick question. And it kind of goes back to the funding. As taxpayers look at this, what would you say is your ultimate long-term goals with the program? What kind of return on investment can taxpayers expect from investing this money in the program? And can you speak, one more question, can you speak a little bit, and you already kind of touched on this a little bit,
on the information that you're garnering here, what the plans are to try to help get that out to other farmers so they can benefit from this information? Let me answer the last question
Speaker 61
25:27
first about getting the information out to the farmers. We have already started doing
Mike Daniels
Unverified
25:32
some of that. Now, here's the tricky thing for us. We want to get this developed and get it on its way. We don't want to market the product before it's ready to be marketed. And so we're at the point now that you're going to hear a lot more in the newspapers and those things.
We've got an electronic e-mail through Constant Contact that we'll be sending out. We'll be glad to send you all and provide you all a copy if we could get your e-mail addresses. It will be an electronic. We will have a website dedicated to Discovery Farms that we'll be putting information up on. And we will be holding this summer at least three local conservation tours and using these discovery farms as the centerpiece for those tours and talk about what we're doing. So that's some of the educational things that we're doing. Terry, did you have something you wanted to say?
Speaker 11
26:20
Yeah, I just want to make a quick comment. This is not only going to be just for farmers, this information we collect. We think this information is going to be good for the whole state, for the legislature. When people come to y'all and ask y'all to pass a law or make a rule or a regulation, this is going to be some sound science, unbiased information that you can rely on to make your decision. And a lot of state agencies will be able to use this information in their rule-making
Speaker 33
26:47
process. So we think it's going to be a benefit for everyone, not just the farmers.
Mike Daniels
Unverified
26:57
investment, we don't have a lot of data on what's going on on our farms and what kind of impact they have in terms of natural resources and that sort of thing. So I see this as a program driven by agriculture, but not necessarily for agriculture. It would be for all the citizens in trying to make sure that we're using the most efficient processes and practices that we can on our farm to make sure that we conserve groundwater. or make sure that we're not putting things into streams that may affect tourism and other parts of the economy.
The thing that really excites me about this program is the ownership that the farmers have taken in this and the proactiveness that they don't want to be reactive. They want this done, and they want it done right, not just to show them for something that they may not be. They truly want to find out what's going on and reflect that to the general public. And if there's problems, and in Wisconsin in their program, they found some problems. Those farmers were able to get together and work with extension and university to find solutions,
and they put those solutions into place. And we're planning the same course of action here. As far as some of the other
Speaker 61
28:06
budget questions, again, I'd rather defer that to Dr. Cochran. I think unless
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
28:11
any other member has anything specific on the budget they'd like to ask, it sounds like we'll be hearing a lot more about it in the future. Seeing no other questions, I'd simply say again, thank you for coming. I know it's never easy to get to Little Rock and in the Capitol and put up with all of us. So thank you for coming and giving us your presentation and the information.
I think Ms. Ervin will provide you with our email addresses so you can send us information to stay in touch and keep us up to date on this program. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you. Members, we had a rather short agenda, as you saw. Representative Smith had to leave. He had a meeting about the L word. Lignite, I think, is what he was talking about. But he's going to pass over his bill 1242. Representative Patterson, would you like to pass over 1171?
Yes. And Representative Smith, 1055, also pass over. Those are the only three bills on our agenda. So seeing no other business, we'll stand adjourned until Thursday or Friday. Thank you.
Agenda
Call to Order
Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Terry Dabbs
Unverified
Mike Daniels
Unverified
Speaker 8
Speaker 11
Representative Walls McCrary Chair
Unverified
Speaker 18
Representative Garry L. Smith
Unverified
Speaker 23
Representative John Burris
Unverified
Speaker 10
Representative Homer Lenderman
Unverified
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Speaker 24
Speaker 45
Speaker 14
Speaker 51
Speaker 57
Speaker 55
Speaker 7
Speaker 61
Speaker 33