By Caitlin Hayes
Tom Corcoran, co-owner of T&D Corcoran Farms & Son in Caledonia, New York, had already seen how planting cover crops improved soil health, reduced erosion and runoff and tamped down weeds. But he had 400 acres of leased land for which he couldn’t justify the costs of implementation – especially the extra help needed to plant and kill off the cover crops at the right times.
This was until 2023, when Corcoran enrolled in the New York Outcomes Fund, a pilot program out of the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability, that delivered payments to farmers for implementing sustainable farming practices, such as planting cover crops and reducing tillage of soil.
“It was the shot in the arm I needed,” said Corcoran, president of the New York Corn and Soybean Growers Association (NYCSGA), who grows corn, sweetcorn, wheat, dry beans and soybeans on 1,800 acres with his wife, Diane, and son, Troy. “We were already doing these practices on a lot of our land, but this was an extra catalyst to get us to do it on all of our acres.”
Corcoran is one of 23 farmers across 14 counties in western and central New York who collectively enrolled nearly 10,000 acres in the yearlong program – reducing nitrogen runoff by an estimated 117,000 pounds, phosphorus runoff by 6,800 pounds and sequestering 6,085 metric tons of carbon dioxide. In 2024, the program grew by 60%, adding another 5,000 acres, with nearly all farmers re-enrolling.
To offset upfront costs of the transition and reduce risk, growers received half of the payment – funded by the Great Lakes Protection Fund and global food corporation Cargill – before implementing new practices.
“One of the things that was exciting to our growers was that this was so straightforward and in the grand scheme of things, it was easy, with an immediate reward,” said Colleen Klein, executive director of NYCSGA. “Our growers are always looking to improve their practices and their ground, the land they leave behind, but at the end of the day, it has to be economical. They have to be able to survive year to year. And this program provided an immediate path to do both those things.”
For Cornell Atkinson, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary, the project embodies the center’s mission: to build partnerships that advance sustainability and to accelerate the movement of research to impact. Since 2010, the center has shepherded $45 million to sustainability research, supporting more than 700 faculty fellows and administering more than 1,500 grants and awards.
“This wasn’t just about cutting checks to farmers, this was an investment in relationships, in landscapes and knowledge,” said Alan Martinez, climate and nature finance lead on the strategic partnerships team at Cornell Atkinson and project lead for the New York Outcomes Fund. “We directed over $1 million in payments to farmers to implement regenerative practices and built a foundation of trust and shared learning that will continue to be part of the legacy of these farms long after the funding cycle ends.”
Building community, building trust
The project began when contacts from the Great Lakes Protection Fund approached Cornell Atkinson in 2020 with funding to accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices in the Lake Ontario watershed. In particular, they wanted to pursue research on how financing structures could be used to meet their goals. It was the perfect project for Martinez, who has a background in finance and as an entrepreneur.
“It was a finance project, and the goal was water quality,” Martinez said.
In the first year, Martinez teamed with John Tobin-de la Puente, professor of practice in the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, to research the use of financial incentives in agriculture; they found that reducing risk for farmers is key to improving the adoption of sustainability practices. In year 2, Martinez partnered with growers associations and Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) – and he listened.
The team attended more than 300 stakeholder meetings with farmers and organizations to better understand the barriers to and drivers of adoption.
“We took seriously the need to co-create in developing a solution for greater adoption,” Martinez said. “We built community, we built trust, we built a way to work with farmers, rather than tell them what they should be doing.”
The result was a solution that pays growers for implementing cover crops and reduced tillage, with payments structured around sustainability outcomes: metric tons of carbon sequestered or reduced fertilizer runoff, which were calculated based on how many acres were enrolled and the practices added.
Martinez and his team planned to enroll 1,000 acres in the pilot. But by the end of an annual NYCSGA meeting where they introduced the program, they had interest representing 30,000 acres.
“And by the end of the weekend, we probably had 60,000 acres,” Martinez said. “It speaks to the fact that a lot of growers want to be a part of this conversation.”
The interest far outweighed the available funding, so Martinez and his team secured additional financial backing and established a partnership with Cargill, which had corporate interest in reducing emissions and developing regenerative supply chains.
Representatives from the program and from CCE, as well as third-party validators, visited each farm multiple times, both to verify that practices were incorporated and working, and to provide support for the transition, through guidance on best practices and help with any problems that arose.
Corcoran said the support, financial and otherwise, provided an essential invitation for growers who were reluctant to make the initial investment.
“It’s a long-term commitment, but if somebody gets into this program and sees that it didn’t hurt their yields, maybe it helped their yields, and it helped their soil – that can be the a-ha! moment for someone to see that this really does work,” he said.
Klein said the program also gave leaders in the community a platform.
“There’s a good segment of our farming community that may not want to be the first to do something,” Klein said. “We’ve taken our pilot set of growers, and we’re showcasing what they’re doing, that it works, and then it’s very easy to sell to other growers. When they can see their neighbor, someone they know and trust, doing this – that goes a very long way. Then this lead-by-example model can make greater change across the whole New York farming landscape.”
While the pilot concludes in April 2025, it will provide a proof of concept that Martinez expects will have a lasting impact as a blueprint and inspiration for other initiatives. He’s in conversations with researchers, government agencies and departments, conservation organizations, extension offices and growers associations to share the model and lessons learned.
“There’s the hope that we can use the things we’ve learned,” Martinez said. “We want to have a program that influences how others do their work and inspires more people to co-create with partners and explore market-driven approaches.”
But the most immediate impact of the program has been on the participating farmers, who after only a year reported seeing improved soil health, more biodiversity and less erosion.
“I say this all the time: It took thousands of years to put that soil on top of the hill, and it takes one rain event to wash it down into the road or woods or swamp,” Corcoran said. “We want to leave our farm and our rented ground better than when we got it. We want to be great caretakers.”
“When people ask me how we got this to work, I always say that we centered on one thing, which was value to farmers. That’s it,” Martinez said. “In doing so, the program has shed light on a new approach to agricultural finance, not as subsidy but as stewardship.”
Source : cornell.edu