Thriving Ag Final Report

Executive Summary

The Thriving Agricultural Systems in Urbanized Landscapes project, or Thriving Ag for short, is a 6½ year, $9 million project funded by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). The goal of the Thriving Ag project is to create economically thriving and environmentally sustainable agricultural systems along the rural–urban continuum within the next 25 years. The project began in September 2019 and ended in February 2026, but progress toward the project goal continues through adoption of the technologies, management strategies, and tools for public policymakers developed by the project.

Agricultural systems along the rural–urban continuum can be found in metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties adjacent to metropolitan areas. Over 60% of net farm income in the United States comes from these counties. The Chesapeake Bay Watershed (CBW) served as a case study for the project, as 95% of counties in the CBW are metropolitan or metropolitan-adjacent. A team of researchers, educators, and extension professionals from Penn State, University of Maryland, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Virginia Tech, George Washington University, Ohio State, Utah State, and the Stroud Water Research Center worked collaboratively on the project with key stakeholder groups.

Communities along the rural–urban continuum value nearby farms for locally produced food, open space and picturesque scenery, community identity and heritage, recreational opportunities such as agritourism, and wildlife habitats. However, the sustainability of agriculture along the rural–urban continuum is threatened by intensifying competition for land, workers, and water driven by urban growth and sprawl, as well as residents’ concerns about water contamination, livestock and manure odors, noise from farm machinery, and other aspects of agricultural activities.

Thriving Ag is a transdisciplinary project, integrating knowledge from multiple academic disciplines and project stakeholders. The project had a 20-member Stakeholder Advisory Board consisting of representatives from farms, farm organizations, agricultural conservation assistance providers, agricultural input suppliers, technology suppliers, real estate developers, environmental groups, and government officials at the local, state, and federal levels. The project also held one in-person workshop in 2020 and six in-person workshops throughout the CBW from 2022 to 2025 with a wide range of stakeholders.

The project researchers, educators, extension professionals, and Stakeholder Advisory Board worked together closely using a shared discovery framework to envision 25-year futures for agriculture in the CBW that are economically prosperous while also enhancing ecosystem services and what would have to happen to realize these futures. The following five scenarios came out of this process:

1. A baseline or business-as-usual scenario in which existing trends in the Watershed continue as is—this serves as a reference point for the other scenarios
2. An ecosystem services scenario in which farms are incentivized based on how well their conservation practices perform
3. Strong farmland preservation and smart growth strategies to ensure that productive farmland is not lost to development
4. Increased farm profitability through enhanced local food efforts and growth of urban/rural relationships
5. A disruptive scenario in which new plant-based meat alternatives displace meat consumption, similar to how plant-based milk alternatives have reduced demand for cow’s milk

Outputs from the Thriving Ag project focus on practical, usable implications for project stakeholders, including farmers and growers; agricultural conservation assistance providers; land use planners and farmland preservation program officials; regional food hubs and food/agricultural supply chains; local, state, and federal government officials; and researchers.

For farmers and growers, practical implications include:

• Recommended cover crop mixtures and optimized planting and termination schedules to improve crop yields and nitrogen retention in agricultural soils
• Development of an online Nitrogen Decision Support Tool for corn to improve nitrogen use efficiency and farm profitability, taking into account nitrogen in soil organic matter and cover crop residues.
• Conservation practices that reduce nitrogen runoff, especially during extreme precipitation events when most runoff occurs

For agricultural conservation assistance providers, practical implications highlight the importance of:

• Financial incentives as the most effective strategy to spur adoption of best management practices (BMPs)
• Technical assistance to navigate complex BMP cost-share programs and identify which practices are appropriate for each farm’s resources and management goals
• Photos of BMPs and other tools to help farmers visualize what BMPs on their farms would look like
• Targeted outreach events to farmers instead of mass outreach events or mailings, which are usually ineffective

For land use planners and farmland preservation program officials, practical implications include:

• The development potential of farmland depends heavily on housing and farmland prices, and development is more sensitive to these prices in more urbanized areas.
• Competition for land between solar development and agriculture is likely to increase farmland scarcity and farmland prices, especially at the urban fringe.
• Farmland prices are more sensitive to climate—summer, fall, and winter precipitation—in rural areas than in more urbanized areas.

For regional food hubs and food/agricultural supply chains, practical implications include:

• Blockchain is now widely available for agricultural applications such as traceability and data security, but several farm-level constraints still need to be overcome, including limited automation readiness, inadequate access to high-speed internet, and legacy building design.
• For food products purchased at supermarkets, urban consumers expect local food to cost less than non-local food, but in more rural areas, consumers are willing to pay more for local food.
• In food and agricultural supply chains in the CBW, nitrogen use efficiency is the lowest in livestock farming and highest in food processing. View the Impacts of Future Scenarios on Nitrogen Loss from Agricultural Supply Chainsin the Chesapeake Bay interactive dashboard.
• Changes in people’s dietary preferences that lead to less meat consumption would reduce demand for livestock products and reshape agricultural production systems in the CBW.

For local, state, and federal government officials, practical implications include:

• Surveys of farmers and non-farm residents in the CBW on their level of support for strategies to control farm runoff find the highest support for a certification program allowing farms to market their products as “watershed friendly.”
• Targeting BMP cost-share funds to farms in more rural areas instead of more urbanized areas could improve program efficiency and reduce public spending.
• A “yield reserve” that compensates farms for yield losses from lower nitrogen fertilizer applications is more cost effective than cropland retirement, such as the Conservation Reserve Program, in reducing nitrogen losses from cropland.
• An increase in the federal Class I base milk price (fluid milk) would draw economic resources into dairy from other livestock production, leading to an increase in nitrogen emissions from livestock to water bodies in the CBW but a decrease in phosphorus emissions.
• CBW counties differ significantly in the economic and environmental performance of their agriculture, with high-performing counties offering guidance that lower performers can study.
• Geography alone is a poor predictor of similarity among counties in agricultural production characteristics, calling into question farm programs based on broad regional divisions.
• Increasing heat stress is likely to cause a steady decline in crop yields over time across the Susquehanna River Basin, the largest tributary to the Chesapeake Bay.

For researchers, practical implications include:

• Surveys of project workshop participants find that breakout sessions are the most valued component, promoting idea exchange and action-oriented dialogue.
• These surveys also emphasize the value of allowing ample time for in-person networking and stakeholder interaction.
• Barriers to fully engage with transdisciplinary projects include the size and complexity of these projects and logistical factors such as different geographic locations.
• Many researchers, educators, and extension professionals on the project have long-standing relationships with project stakeholders, which contributed to project success and provide a foundation for future collaborations.