Conservation Archives - Delta Institute

Delta partnered with the Conservation Fund and Champaign County Soil and Water Conservation District to develop and test a framework for an Illinois-centric program that would offer farmers financial incentives to implement soil health practices, also known as "Pay for Performance."

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Institutionalizing Soil Health Land Valuation in Michigan

Delta engaged landowners, land managers, and farmers to implement conservation practices in Southeastern Michigan, thus improving environmental outcomes, while exploring soil health as a core component of the land valuation and appraisal process of Michigan's working lands.

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Conservation Hotspot Analysis in Illinois

To assess conservation adoption in Illinois and identify key factors that lead to higher adoption rates, Delta Institute (Delta) and the Environmental Working Group partnered to identify conservation hotspots. We utilized publicly available data to identify where conservation practices are being adopted. Where we had datasets that covered extended time ranges, we also assessed the longevity of conservation behavior. Additionally, an interactive map was created to facilitate further exploration of the data.

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Pay for Performance Agricultural Conservation in the Kalamazoo River Watershed (MI)

Delta Institute (Delta) created a market and performance-based agricultural incentive program to reduce phosphorus loading in the Kalamazoo River Watershed associated with agricultural sources. Participating farmers entered bids to achieve phosphorus loading reductions at the lowest cost by implementing conservation practices. Farmers whose bids are accepted are paid to achieve those reductions.

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Examining the State of Land Stewardship in Illinois

Traditionally, conservation land trusts have protected land, often restored it, and later transferred it to government entities for long-term ownership, which effectively transfers the responsibility of land stewardship to those governmental entities. The project consisted of three phases, each aimed at considering the new approaches to conservation finance and building capacity to enable and enhance land stewardship.

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Soil Wealth: Investing in Regenerative Agriculture

Delta Institute released Soil Wealth: Investing in Regenerative Agriculture across Asset Classes, the most comprehensive look to date at investment opportunities in regenerative agriculture. The report provides an in-depth analysis not only of investments in farmland, but also of investment opportunities across asset classes that support regenerative agricultural value chains and food systems.

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Land Tenure and Conservation in Agriculture

Agricultural land management decisions are situated within a complex and interconnected system, influenced by a suite of social and economic factors, many of which are difficult to control. Landowners can, but often don’t, take it upon themselves to drive stewardship of their land. This report focuses on land ownership and tenure as levers to increase conservation and rebuild soil health in the Midwest, where over 50% of the agricultural land is leased.

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Financing Regenerative Agriculture: Wisconsin Pilot

Delta Institute designed new soil-health loan vehicles to allow farmers to more easily transition to regenerative agricultural practices. Our project is enabling investments in—and therefore increasing the scale of—regenerative agriculture. The Wisconsin pilot is focused on building the investment case for the expansion of regenerative diversified small grains production and processing within the NRCS Driftless Area Landscape Conservation Initiative.

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Pay-for-Performance Agricultural Conservation in the Rabbit River Watershed (MI)

Delta Institute (Delta) created a performance-based program for implementing agricultural best management practices to address sediment loading associated with agricultural sources, such as cropland erosion, livestock access, and road/bridge crossings that impacts habitat and water quality in the Rabbit River. Performance-based programs are a targeted approach to investing in conservation when traditional funding is limited. Instead of paying for specific farm practices, this project directs payments that are based on the net environmental improvements resulting from a comprehensive set of practices.

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Phytoremediating Vacant Industrial Land in Gary, Indiana

With support from the U.S. Forest Service Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Legacy Foundation, Delta Institute partnered with the City of Gary and Greenprint Partners to transform the once thriving site of the five-acre Bear Brand Hosiery Co. stocking factory into a park by planting hybrid poplar trees to improve soil quality.

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Improving Tools to Catalyze Investment in Sustainable Agricultural Lands and Practices

Delta and Farmland LP partnered to create evaluation and assessment mechanisms to model the economic and environmental benefits of different scenarios to transition traditional commodity agricultural land to diverse, sustainable production models.

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Reducing phosphorus runoff in Green Lake, WI

In 2016 Delta assisted the Green Lake Association (GLA) for Green Lake, Wisconsin, in developing an effective long-term approach to reducing phosphorus loading into the Green Lake watershed by leveraging existing research and tools, with a goal of demonstrable water quality improvement, watershed health, and sediment/nutrient reduction.

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Accelerating Outcome-Based Ag Conservation in Saginaw Bay

The Saginaw Bay Watershed Conservation Partnership, led by TNC with support from Delta and other partners, developed and implemented a new strategy to address the primary and secondary resource concerns in the region, particularly water quality degradation and inadequate fish and wildlife habitat.

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Bringing Greenhouse Gas Benefits to Market: Nutrient Management for Nitrous Oxide Reductions

Delta created a novel nitrous oxide carbon credit methodology that allowed producers to access carbon market revenue from reducing fertilizer application rates. Delta was able to deliver the first successful nitrous oxide reduction project on the voluntary carbon market. The project was highlighted by Agriculture Secretary Vilsack for its innovation and success.

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