Soil and Water Outcomes Fund: A Year of Remarkable Growth and Impact in 2023

As we prepare to launch our 2024 enrollment season, we’d like to reflect on the significant growth the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund (SWOF) experienced in 2023. Our impact is a collective effort from our innovative farmers, hardworking staff, supporting partners, and local community advocates. Through our shared commitment to supporting farmers and environmental stewardship, our program achieved new milestones this past year and spread to new farmland across the country. Please join us in celebrating this progress toward a more sustainable and resilient agricultural future by reviewing our 2023 recap below.  

Expanded Geographic Reach: 

SWOF reached new heights this past year by expanding our ecosystem services to farmland across 14 states. Through a grant with the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s (USDA) Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities initiative and approximately $62 million in partner commitments, SWOF was able to quickly scale and expand opportunities to farmers in a diverse range of states, from North Dakota to North Carolina and New York. This impressive leap from 6 states to 14 in a year’s time underscores our commitment to making a nationwide impact on sustainable farming practices.  

To keep pace with this growth and continue providing agronomic and technical program support to all our participating farmers, we also more than doubled our staff in 2023. We now have nine field team members on the ground across six states and are actively adding more for 2024. And since peer-to-peer learning is so important in farming, we’ve also been building our community recruiter network to make sure more farming communities have a local, trusted SWOF resource. We’re proud to have over 50 agricultural leaders across ten states helping to share these opportunities with farmers in their area.  

Significant Growth in Enrolled Acres: 

Across those 14 states, we enrolled over 300,000 acres in our program. This is a large leap from the 126,000 acres enrolled in 2022. A key factor to scaling our work this fast is our program’s farmer retention rate, with over 92% of our participating farmers reenrolling from 2022 to 2023. We pride ourselves on being a farmer-focused program with support, transparency, and continuous improvement. This number is an important one for us as we continue our work with our partners and farmers. 

These 300,000 acres belong to operations of all sizes, with our largest field enrolled at 807.66 acres and our smallest enrolled field coming in at .67 acres. Since there is no acreage minimum or maximum required for enrollment, our program design allows farmers to scale their participation at their own rate.  

Our monitoring and verification team continues to uphold our high standards for measurement and reporting. In 2023, they conducted 1,400 in person field visits, took 3,600 soil samples, and 600 water samples. This spring they are gearing up to physically visit and verify every enrolled field with tillage practice changes and those with over-wintering cover crops.  

Substantial Payments Made to Farmers and Environmental Impact: 

SWOF achieved another milestone in 2023 by providing farmers with $10.5 million in direct payments for the environmental outcomes that resulted from their practice changes. This is up from $4 million in 2022 and brings our program’s farmer payment total to over $17.5 million since our launch in 2021. Our average payment per acre was $33.  

Over the past three years, our collective work has also achieved the following environmental outcomes: 

• 462,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases sequestered and emissions reduced (equivalent to removing 100,430 cars from the road for a year). 

• 6,064,000 lbs. of nitrogen prevented from leaving enrolled fields.

• 352,000 lbs. of phosphorus prevented from leaving enrolled fields. 

As we celebrate the achievements of 2023, the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund remains dedicated to fostering sustainable agriculture, environmental resilience, and farmer success. The strides made in geographic reach, enrolled acres, and farmer support reflect our commitment to making a positive impact on the agricultural landscape. Looking ahead, SWOF is poised to continue its journey of growth and collaboration, working with farmers across the nation and our partners to build a more sustainable and resilient future. 

Stay tuned for more updates on our ongoing initiatives and the positive outcomes that lie ahead in 2024!