Not all BMPs are Created Equal: No Regret, Neutral, Sacrifice and Dead End BMPs

Introduction: The science of anthropogenic global warming is well established. Burning 100 M barrels of oil equivalent does do harm, yet in the USA Mid-West as well as in Alberta 90% of farmers sampled either did not believe in AGW or thought it is a natural process. Purpose: to provide an alternative view of twelve BMPs and their importance and adoption by leading innovative global warming wary farmers operating in the Northern Great Plains. Findings: Analysis of the exploratory in-depth qualitative narrative-based research work conducted during my PhD thesis has resulted in development of Rourke’s General Farm Practice Change Theory, a Net Positive farm Framework and a Global warming Mitigation credit framework. It went further to develop a BERT/E BMP adoption scoring system, where B= Beliefs, E= Economics, R= Regulatory environment, T= scalable local pragmatic technology and the second E, the denominator is the Energy of the farmer physically and mentally to make the change(s). Practical Implications: To be widely adopted BMPs must have a high BERT/E score and can be grouped into 4 categories, No Regret, Neutral, Sacrifice and Dead End BMPs. The study found while farmers may believe in a wide variety of BMPs, it is only the very few which are No Regret BMPs that are widely adopted and are needed to become Net Positive. Two of the 12 farm participants were Net Positive. These farms also had high Sustainable Farm Indices, SFI, which balances farm profitability, farm output with farm emissions—a Triple Win.