Unique partnership for conservation grows in central Illinois
BLOOMINGTON-NORMAL, Ill., June 12, 2013 – Livingston County, Illinois may
look like standard farm country. But a three-year old partnership between the
area’s farmers, agriculturalists, scientists and government workers means
visitors need to look a little closer – or dig a little deeper – to find the
differences.
With the help of USDA’s National Resource Conservation
Service (NRCS), Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and corporate
sponsors including Syngenta, the Fertilizer Institute, and the Mosaic Company,
the Livingston County Soil and Water Conservation District’s producers have
rallied around one shared problem: depletion of the area’s watershed.
It’s a complex issue, but the public-private partnership has
launched a number of projects to ensure that Illinois soil stays as productive
and nutrient-rich as it is today.
Their flagship venture is the Indian Creek Watershed Project
– a voluntary program that provides technical and financial assistance to
producers addressing local water quality concerns. The project is part of the
larger Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative, and has furnished
Livingston County with NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQUIP)
funds.
That money, supplemented by assistance from agriculture
groups like the Illinois Farm Bureau, goes to farmers making coordinated and
conscientious efforts to reduce nutrient runoff and soil erosion.
Producers also have the option of enrolling in the
Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), which gives landowners an annual payment
proportional to the environmental change they effect on their property.
“It’s a great partnership,” said Marcus Maier, a fourth
generation farmer who has worked with the Livingston County group for six
years. He says NRCS employees in particular have shown an interest in “coming
up with things we can all work with.”
Maier made his remarks during the Conservation Technology
Information Center’s annual Conservation in Action Tour, which took
out-of-towners around Livingston County this week to highlight the area’s water
quality projects.
John Traub, who operates Traub Farms, says participating in
the partnership has already paid dividends. Last year, while other corn and
soybean producers suffered through a hundred year drought, Traub struggled
along with them – but “saw a difference in the way the crop thrived.”
Traub, whose land is majority strip-till corn and no-till
beans, has installed buffer strips – permanent vegetation surrounding his crops
meant to intercept pollutants and nurture wildlife – and drainage tile through
the program.
He credits those changes with his quasi-success last year.
While other producers’ crops died immediately, his suffered a “slow, lingering
death,” he said to laughs.
That’s evidence that the partnership is going “great,” Jason
Weller, Acting Chief of NRCS, told Agri-Pulse
during the Conservation in Action Tour. Weller said he was impressed that
producers were bringing up the benefits of the CSP program – one of his
agency’s newest priorities – completely unprompted.
“That wouldn’t have happened a few years ago,” he said.
And he says Livingston County has become a model for the rest of the nation, demonstrating how federal, state and local governments can partner with producers and corporate interests to promote agriculture methods that are good for the land – and for the region’s pocketbooks.
Producers are especially pleased because the county’s
programs are all voluntary, allowing them to pick and choose the conservation
methods most appropriate for their land. And whatever the strategies use, demonstrable
results garner the same outcome: federal money.
That makes no-till and strip-till farmer Steve Steirwalt
pretty happy. “As a farmer, I want tot be able to forestall regulations by
doing it myself,” he said.
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