2014 CTIC Conservation in Action Tour Photo Album

Many of the participants at last week’s CTIC Conservation in Action tour of the Florida Everglades Agricultural area were from the Midwest and they were very interested in some of the very different crop production they saw in the Sunshine State.

CTIC board member and National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) Soil Health and Sustainability Manager Nick Goeser was amazed by the sugarcane planting and harvesting he saw. “It’s incredible,” he said. “It’s different (compared to corn) but the level of mechanization is very similar, the level of farm management, the precision involved – it’s amazing.”

Farmers in the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) have implemented some very successful best management practices to protect the important ecosystem that provides the water supply for much of the state. “A lot of the management issues are similar,” said Goeser. “We learned they had about a 55% reduction in phosphorus, which is huge.”

Goeser says what farmers have been able to accomplish in the EAA can serve as a conservation case study for farmers in other parts of the country.

Listen to my interview with Nick here and watch some of the sugarcane harvest in the video below: Interview with Nick Goeser, NCGA