ICGA Precision Conservation Management
The purpose of the Precision Conservation Management (PCM) program is 3-fold: 1) allow Illinois commodity crop farmers to voluntarily address regulatory issues and water quality concerns; 2) assist PCM partners wishing to demonstrate their efforts to support farmers (through PCM) and source sustainably-produced crop products; and 3) provide financial analysis of agronomic practices to help farmers make sound business decisions regarding implementation of conservation practices. PCM’s primary resource concerns are water quality, soil health, and greenhouse gases and we focus our efforts and resources toward assisting farmers with implementation of in-field management practices that most effectively address those concerns, namely nutrient management, reduced tillage and cover crops.
Engagement Targets
Notes: (1) Minor fluctuations in the number of retained growers is expected from year to year. These fluctuations may be due to year-over-year crop rotation effects or other factors beyond the control of the project. Enrolled acres represent the total number of acres on an individual farm in a specific year. The ability to report enrolled acres is based on the Fieldprint Project Standard requirement that individual growers enrolled in projects enter at least 10% of the acres managed for a specific crop. (2) Entered acres represent the actual number of enrolled acres for which data is entered in the Fieldprint Platform for analysis.
Objectives
Currently working with 401 farmers across PCM.
Last year's reporting numbers included data from the other Pepsi projects. This may have accidentally resulted in some double counting of acres and growers that were reported in those projects. For the 2023 data, I only included the unique PCM data we collected. We are currently have 279 growers in this project
Worked with 265 growers in 2024.
Enrolled 160,276 acres in 2024.