Applying a “fail‐fast” approach to conservation in US agriculture

Conservation programs often operate for many years with little information on program performance or impacts. A better process would encourage programs to “fail fast”—in other words, to implement rapid testing to learn and adapt early, and thereby avoid wasting resources. Here, we present a fail‐fas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Conservation science and practice 2022-03, Vol.4 (3), p.n/a
Main Authors: Wardropper, Chloe B., Esman, Laura A., Harden, Seth C., Masuda, Yuta J., Ranjan, Pranay, Weigel, Collin, Ferraro, Paul J., Prokopy, Linda S., Reddy, Sheila M. W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Agricultural conservation
Agricultural land
Agriculture
behavioral experiment
Conservation
Data collection
Environmental protection
Failure
Farms
Health behavior
impact assessment
innovation
Innovations
Intervention
Landowners
nonoperating landowners
randomized controlled trial
soil health
Soil improvement
Success
Water quality
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Summary:Conservation programs often operate for many years with little information on program performance or impacts. A better process would encourage programs to “fail fast”—in other words, to implement rapid testing to learn and adapt early, and thereby avoid wasting resources. Here, we present a fail‐fast approach applied in a multiyear field trial program that sought to improve soil health in the US Cornbelt on farmland owned by nonoperating landowners. While failing fast requires investment and a supportive team culture, we recommend that this approach to program design, with metrics tailored to the program context, be used early and frequently throughout planning and implementation phases to improve program processes and test assumptions well before final outcomes are detectable. In this Perspective, we present our approach to conservation program design, which entails learning from small and frequent program failures and successes to evaluate innovative interventions before they are brought to scale. The fail‐fast approach is illustrated through a case study of a trial conservation program for rented farmland in the US Cornbelt.
ISSN:2578-4854
2578-4854
DOI:10.1111/csp2.619