At this weekend’s gathering of the Group of 20, the world’s 20 largest economies, the group took a step back from its typically overt pro-free trade agenda, in the wake of pushback from the United States.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen represented the U.S. in two days of meetings with their counterparts from the world’s 20 largest economies in Baden-Baden, Germany.

“We are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies,” said the statement concluding this year’s meeting. That wording stops short of rejecting protectionism, as the group has done in the past.

In this first G20 summit of the Trump era, there was trepidation among other members, following Trump’s declaration of an “America First” agenda, and his criticism of the trade policies of China, Mexico, and others. As Steve Beckner reports for NPR’s Newscast:

“At past meetings, joint affirmations of free trade have been virtually automatic. Last year, policymakers of the world’s biggest trading nations pledged to ‘reject protectionism.’ But to the consternation of the host Germans and others, such language is conspicuously absent from the G20’s latest statement.”

Germany dropped the no-protectionism pledge early on in the process, the Associated Press reports, to avoid antagonizing the United States delegation. But in the end, the group failed to find a substitute phrase in support of free trade that all could agree on.

In his first international meeting since he was sworn in, Mnuchin said “the historical language was not really relevant.”

“We believe in free trade, we are in one of the largest markets in the world, we are one of the largest trading partners in the world, trade has been good for us, it has been good for other people,” Mnuchin said. “Having said that, we want to re-examine certain agreements.”

The AP reports that Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, suggested there had been tension during the two-day meeting. Without mentioning a country by name, he said, “Maybe one or the other important member state needs to get a sense of how international cooperation works.”

The Washington Post reports that Mnuchin quickly became the center of attention at the gathering, with many foreign leaders seeking to meet with him. During those meetings, the Post reports,

“Mnuchin delivered the same message that Trump had made for months, just slightly softer, according to attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions: The United States would unapologetically work to redraft trade practices in a way that helps American workers. He said trade agreements need to be “free and fair” and balanced. He also said an overhaul of the U.S. tax code was overdue and that the United States would rethink regulations put in place after the Great Recession. …

Two European officials described Mnuchin as friendly but “tough.” They also said the U.S. delegation at the G-20 was routinely checking back with its counterparts in Washington on certain issues, leading some Europeans to wonder with whom they were negotiating, Mnuchin or Trump. But one of the European officials said this was not uncommon for a new administration, which was still formalizing its viewpoint on an array of complicated matters.”

The Group of 20 is comprised of 19 countries plus the European Union. This more casual meeting of finance ministers will be followed by a formal gathering of national leaders in Hamburg, Germany, in July.

You can read the full communiqué from the G20 here, at the German Federal Ministry of Finance.

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U.S. Customs and Border Protection is asking for design proposals and prototypes of President Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Late Friday, the agency released specifics for the first time on how tough the barrier must be. CBP posted online two different options for contractors: one proposal must be for a solid concrete wall, another is for a wall with “a see-through component/capability” that is “operationally advantageous.”

“The wall design shall be physically imposing in height,” the CBP outlines say. The government says its “nominal concept” is for a 30-foot-high wall, but adds that designs as low as 18 feet “may be acceptable.”

The proposal document asks contractors for 30-foot-long prototypes and mock-ups of 10 feet by 10 feet.

A CBP official told NPR’s John Burnett that contractors will have to make mock-ups of their ideas in San Diego. “It’s a way for the agency to identify designs. We’re looking for industry’s designs, to take a fresh look at the wall. We’ll have industry propose and then we’ll down-select.”

The CBP, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, requires the wall designs to be impossible for humans to climb without a ladder. It wants proposals that will prevent people from tunneling underneath by at least 6 feet underground.

The government outlines the types of things both types of walls have to stand up to: “sledgehammer, car jack, pick axe, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools.”

It has to look good, too. “The north side of wall (i.e. U.S. facing side) shall be aesthetically pleasing in color, anti-climb texture, etc., to be consistent with general surrounding environment,” the CBP says. There’s no mention of the aesthetics on the Mexican side.

More than 400 companies have told the Department of Homeland Security they’re interested in the project, NPR’s Richard Gonzales reported last week. Cost estimates of the wall vary widely: President Trump said it would cost $12 billion; an MIT study said $38 billion.

The deadline for contractors to submit their proposals for the first phase is March 29.

NPR’s John Burnett contributed to this report.

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Environmentalists love “cover crops.” These are plants that tolerate cool weather and grow on farm fields after the crops are harvested. They hold the soil in place and are probably the most effective way to keep nutrients infields, rather than polluting nearby streams.

Unfortunately, the average farmer doesn’t love these crops quite so much. The Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, studied satellite images of the Midwest and found that farmers in Iowa and Illinois had planted cover crops on less than three percent of their corn and soybean fields. Indiana’s farmers did slightly better, with cover crops on about seven percent of cropland.

That’s tiny, compared to what’s needed to dramatically reduce water pollution from farms. Soren Rundquist, one of the authors of the EWG report, tells The Salt that Iowa’s environmental planners want cover crops on at least 60 percent of the state’s corn and soybean acres. Illinois has set a similar goal. The number of acres with cover crops in both states is increasing, Rundquist says, but at current rates these states won’t meet their goals for decades to come.

There is, however, a proven way to get farmers to cover their fields. Pay them a lot of money for it. It’s worked well in one state — Maryland.

In a part of the state known as the Eastern Shore, a heavily agricultural area along the Chesapeake Bay, farmers now plant cover crops on well over 50 percent of all corn fields, says Ken Staver, a scientist at the University of Maryland’s Wye Research and Education Center.

“The whole system is structured to get maximum impact,” says Staver. The state of Maryland pays farmers for a whole range of practices — like cover crops — that cut nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into streams. The more effective the practice in cutting pollution, the more money the farmers get. The biggest payments — up to $90 per acre — go to farmers who plant a cover crop of rye on corn fields early in the fall, and avoid spreading manure as fertilizer on their fields until spring arrives. (Spreading manure in the fall is more convenient for farmers, but it’s also more likely to wash away over the winter.)

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A growing cover crop (left) captures soil nutrients that otherwise might wash away from a field with no vegetation.

Courtesy of Practical Farmers of Iowa

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Courtesy of Practical Farmers of Iowa

In theory, Staver says, farmers shouldn’t need those payments, because a cover crop can pay for itself. It keeps soil healthy and keeps valuable nutrients in the field, so farmers don’t need to spend as much money on fertilizer.

In practice, Staver says, those arguments haven’t changed farmers’ behavior. “We’ve been at this a really long time,” he says. “We tried that, 20 years ago, and it just wasn’t happening.”

Farmers can be reluctant to plant cover crops because it means extra work, especially at crucial times in the fall and spring. Last year, some farmers in Indiana reportedly had trouble killing off their thriving cover crops when it was time to plant corn in those fields.

When Maryland offered farmers about $20 per acre to plant cover crops, some farmers signed up, but not enough of them. It took more generous payments to convince the majority of farmers to get on board.

Staver admits that this may be more feasible for Maryland than for Iowa, because Maryland has a much smaller amount of crop land to protect, compared to its state budget.

But Rundquist, from the EWG, says there’s another way to look at it. Currently, he says, farmers in Iowa get about $10 million each year as incentives to plant cover crops. That’s dwarfed by other federal subsidies that farmers receive; farmers in Iowa got over $1 billion from the federal government in 2015 in the form of subsidies for crop insurance and as compensation for low prices or poor yields.

Rundquist wants the federal government to shift its priorities. “Is [spending more money to promote cover crops] too expensive, considering how much money we spend on agricultural subsidies?” he says.

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