Maternal and child health: is South Asia ready for change?

Increased awareness of the contributions of nonpoint source runoff to the degradation of water quality in the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico emphasizes the need to increase conservation practices that reduce nutrient export from agricultural lands. To achieve long-term conservation goals in agricultural landscapes, it is important to understand farmers9 perspectives on what practices are effective, practical, and economically attainable. We conducted a series of surveys, interspersed with focused outreach, of farmers in two agricultural watersheds in central Illinois in an attempt to better understand how outreach influenced their views on and adoption of conservation practices. Programs differed between the two watersheds in terms of the levels of intensity at which outreach efforts were conducted. Survey results suggest that…