National Facilitation Projects

This project is focused on the use of perfor-

mance-based incentives, where the payments
are triggered by a designated environmental
outcome and not associated with any specific
practice. This gives farmers the flexibility and
incentive to achieve performance targets in the
most cost-effective and appropriate way for
their farm business.

Facilitating the Development of Stakeholder-driven Performance-based

Policies for Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Control

Situation: Actions:
Agriculture remains the leading contributor of non- • Created an informational brochure introducing the perfor-
point source (NPS) pollution to ground and surface mance-based incentives concept and providing project in-
waters in the U.S. Current programs for controlling formation. The brochure has been distributed to over 600
NPS pollution are focused on cost-sharing best man- individuals through conferences, meetings, and targeted
agement practices and compensating farmers for idling outreach.
selected tracks of working land. While these programs • Launched the project Web site, http://www.uvm.edu/
have been important and valuable tools, they do not ~pepa/. The site was designed to be accessible and useful
often (1) fully utilize farmers’ knowledge of their land for the general public and practitioners seeking project
and operations, (2) encourage farmers to take the most information, performance-
cost-effective actions, or (3) based incentives materials,
inspire new and innovative solu- and water-quality related
tions to reduce NPS pollution news.
from their farming operations.
• Conducted outreach presen-
tations at seven professional
Contact: conferences and nine water-
shed and targeted outreach
Jonathan Winsten
Agricultural Economist sessions. Audiences have
208G Morrill Hall included farmers and other
University of Vermont stakeholders, scientists, local,
Burlington, VT 05405 state, and federal agency
802-656-0036 staff, and policy-makers.
http://www.uvm.edu/~pepa/
jwinsten@winrock.org

Impacts/Outcomes:
• Outreach presentations on the performance-based incentives concept have reached over 300 individuals in the project’s
first year.
• As a result of project outreach, efforts to develop specific watershed-level recommendations for the use of performance-
based incentives are being considered in California, Oregon, Florida, Maryland, and Missouri. These efforts will comple-
ment previously developed recommendations currently being pilot-tested in Vermont and Iowa.
• Outreach presentations have been effective at increasing understanding of this innovative approach. Over 87% of pre-
sentation attendees have reported that the presentation contributed either “somewhat well” or “extremely well” to their
understanding of the performance-based incentive concept.
• Four articles highlighting the efforts of watershed groups working with the project were printed in Agri News, an indepen-
dent agricultural newspaper distributed in Minnesota and Iowa.