He put all of his acres, planted to corn and soybeans, into cover crops. That expansion was the commitment he made when he signed a one-year contract with the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund. The Fund stacks payments to farmers for the multiple benefits they provide — capturing carbon in the soil, improving water quality, and other environmental outcomes.
“I guess the thing I liked is that it’s got the government involved, but it’s more of a private program. It rewarded us for practices we wanted to do,” Ollendieck says. “We were looking for ways to put cover crops across all of our acres.”