Like any business owner or operator, farmers take careful consideration when making any changes to their operations. A change that may seem relatively simple to an outsider could require new equipment, more labor or a different response to heavy rain or drought. In the end the change may turn out to be a great success, but that is often difficult to be sure of at the outset.

This balance of change, risk and opportunity cannot be overlooked when asking farmers to address environmental challenges in the Chesapeake Bay. Agriculture may be the leading source of nutrient run-off there, but it has also been the second largest contributor to the progress in cleaning up the bay. We have been working with farmers in the region to help advance this progress through our BMP Challenge, a risk management program that American Farmland Trust is implementing across the nation to encourage farmers to make conservation happen on-the-ground. (For more on the BMP Challenge, read my recent story about visiting a farm in Virginia.)

A recent study in Pennsylvania focused on how to address risk when the business of agriculture intersects with the need to improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. . Here is what we found:

Risk Is Real

The National Academy of Sciences acknowledges the dilemma that farmers face in deciding how much fertilizer to use:

“Since (they) must make nitrogen applications without being able to predict weather and crop yields, the potential for being wrong is always present and will always occur in some years.”

Our data shows that reducing fertilizer on crops can result in decreased yields 40 percent of the time even with well-tested practices. Over time, these practices should pay off, but farmers cite fear of lost income as a major consideration when deciding whether or not to implement new conservation practices.

An Effective Way to Manage Risk

The BMP Challenge provides three helpful supports to farmers willing to take a chance:

1) Technical assistance from a certified agricultural consultant to help plan and implement the change

2) A comparison of the standard and the new practice on the farmer’s field so he or she can get experience using it and see the results

3) An income guarantee so that if a loss in profit is experienced, the farmer receives the difference

The Result: Widespread Adoption of New Practices

In Pennsylvania, we found that BMP Challenge participants report high satisfaction with the program, and 85 percent say that they have continued to use the practice or a modified form of it on their farm.

Looking Ahead

These results are an important step in addressing the risk that farmers face when adopting conservation practices. We believe that the BMP Challenge is an important new tool for farmers—helping them manage part of the risk they face in trying to be good stewards of the environment and successful small businesses at the same time.

Over the coming months, we will continue exploring how these results will impact the Chesapeake Bay and impaired water bodies across the country. Can we scale up our demonstrations to broader availability? Are there other ways to address “conservation risk,” such as emerging income opportunities like water quality trading that can help mitigate the financial risk of adopting water quality practices?

The Mid-Atlantic region is blessed with agricultural diversity, producing an array of food, fuel and fiber from Delaware to Virginia. The past year has been filled with both challenges and opportunities for farms and farmers. Inclement weather throughout much of growing season tested the patience of farmers across the region. State budget concerns brought discussions of conservation to the forefront, at times challenging critical efforts to protect farmland.

As we look back on another year passed, there is also much to celebrate. 2011 saw a remarkable mix of work undertaken to save the land that sustains us, including efforts across the region to protect valuable farmland resources and to safeguard clean water sources and clean up the Chesapeake Bay. We are proud of our work in the Mid-Atlantic and wanted to share a few highlights from the past year:

Honoring a Farmland Preservation Hero

This year, we honored Robert Ambrose of Ridgeview Acres Farm with the Pennsylvania Farmland Preservation Local Heroes Award. The award recognizes his outstanding efforts to protect the farms, natural resources and waters of the commonwealth. Ambrose, who runs a 130-acre cut-flower farm with his wife Sally, has served as the chairman of the Westmoreland County Agricultural Land Preservation Board since 2001, which has preserved more than 10,960 acres of productive farmland.

Helping Farmers Protect Clean Water

Kevin Craun, who farms in the Shenandoah Valley area of Virginia, is just one of many farmers working with American Farmland Trust to reduce fertilizer use and protect clean water. Craun has been working with us by experimenting with alternative soil sampling. This method guides his final fertilizer application, closely matching the crop’s need. By sampling so accurately, Craun and other farmers are reducing their fertilizer use—saving money and protecting their crop yields while helping the environment.

Expanding Our Work in the Chesapeake Bay with Corn Farmers

Through our Mid-Atlantic Clean Water Initiative to help farmers improve their conservation practices, we reached out to farmers and their crop advisors in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania to test effective practices that reduce fertilizer applications while maintaining crop yields. By working with farmers in the field and at the policy level, we made progress in reducing the amount of fertilizer flowing off farm fields and into waterways.

Rallying for Farmland Protection in Maryland

At the state level in Maryland, we galvanized the support of farmland advocates to ask the Maryland General Assembly to reject proposals that would negatively impact land conservation programs. As the Maryland General Session gets underway in January, we’ll need everyone who supports Program Openspace funding that protects farm and forest land and supports parks and recreation to make their voices heard.

A Look Ahead

As the calendar page turns to 2012, we look forward to more chances to work with our partners throughout the region to protect farmland, improve water quality and ensure a viable future for farms and farmers throughout the Mid-Atlantic. We will continue to do our best to turn the many challenges we face into opportunities by doing good work for agriculture in the region. We hope you stay tuned and keep in touch.

Devoted Pennsylvania farmer honored

American Farmland Trust honored Bob Ambrose with the Pennsylvania Farmland Preservation Local Hero Award this week. Bob and his wife run a 130-acre farm and are dedicated to protecting farmland from development.

Growing vegetables and palates

FoodCrops continues to thrive in its first year of service. One corps member in Maine is teaching students how to grow fruits and vegetables while eating healthier foods.

Creative (and manageable) solutions to farming

Sunnyside Farm in Dover, Pennsylvania, will be hosting a workshop on solutions to everyday farm problems on October 17th. Topics range from how to save thousands of gallons of water to learning about creating a pig-managed rototiller.

Grants awarded to beginning farmer programs nationwide

The USDA has awarded grants totaling more than $18 million for enhancing programming and support for beginning farmers and ranchers. Project funding was awarded nationwide, including support for the Stone Barns Center in New York.

More fruits and vegetables, how are you doing it?

The USDA is hosting a contest in which you submit short video clips on how you are adding more fruits and vegetables to your diet while still watching your budget. There are three different categories that you can enter into: tips for kids, tips when eating at home, and tips when eating away from home. So how are you adding more fruits and veggies to your diet?

Pure fall farm beauty

If you haven’t had a chance to get out to the countryside recently to enjoy the beautiful fall, savor some gorgeous fall farm photos before marveling in your closest countryside soon.

Climate change impacting wine industry

Changes in climate felt throughout the nation could alter grape growing conditions in California wine country within the next 30 years. Changes are already being felt in Washington’s Puget Sound and Central New York where conditions, for the time being, are becoming more favorable for the wine industry.

Food and water are our most basic human needs, and therefore clean water and well-managed farms are integral to healthy, thriving communities. 

To keep our water clean, each and every one of us has a role to play.  For those of us in the Mid-Atlantic, the Chesapeake Bay is a special treasure and helping our farmers implement healthy farming practices is a key solution to achieving this goal.

Bay region farmers have done a lot in the last 20 years to protect our water by making changes in how they farm and manage land.  For instance, they have reduced soil loss by 64 percent. However, adopting healthy farming practices is expensive and some high-cost investments don’t help their bottom-line.  Therefore, these barriers, in addition to inflexible regulation, cause some farmers to risk going out of business.  So, if we are asking farmers to protect their land and steward our water, we have to provide them with low-cost, flexible ways to do so.

That’s why AFT has been actively engaging farmers and their advisors in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia to accelerate the adoption of farm conservation practices, develop policies that balance farm viability with real progress on clean water, and bring greater emphasis in the public on the synergies between farmland preservation and water quality protection.

For example, through our Chesapeake Bay Water Quality Initiative we are helping 29 corn, grain and dairy farmers in the three bay states try out Best Management Practices (BMP) risk-free, backed by our BMP Challenge risk guarantee program (18 producers in the Middle and Lower Susquehanna watershed of Pennsylvania, seven in the Upper Eastern Shore of Maryland and four in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia).  Our efforts this year have resulted in:

1) Recruitment of new conservation practices (manure incorporation, phosphorous reduction) along with nitrogen reduction, which have resulted in 126,657 fewer pounds of nitrogen in local waters; and

2) A successful integration with the farm bill’s Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to support the BMP Challenge. 

These projects will continue to influence our 2012 Farm Bill policy work over the next two years.

About the Author: Jim Baird is Mid-Atlantic Director for the American Farmland Trust where he works to help maintain viable farms and clean water through the adoption of nutrient-related conservation practices and ensuring that farmer concerns are reflected in policy and program discussions.

Way to go, Pennsylvanians! In 2009, Pennsylvania’s commonwealth and county governments invested $50 million in farmland protection. With that kind of help, Pennsylvania and its residents were able to preserve over 21,500 acres of farmland on 232 farms. That brings the state’s all-time total to 425,000 acres of protected farmland – more than any other state in the nation.

Within Pennsylvania, significant all-time farmland protection milestones were also crossed this year in Berks, Bucks, Franklin and Lancaster counties.

Pennsylvanians farmland protection success illustrates what can be accomplished when governments, organizations and active citizens work together to save the land that sustains us.

Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of state governments with a Bureau of Farmland Protection. The state’s well-funded purchase of agricultural easement program is run through county governments with local ties that recognize the important role of agriculture in their communities, and the threat of development to their longstanding sense of place. And active citizens and non-profit groups, like the Pennsylvania Farmland Preservation Association and Lancaster Farmland Trust, work at the grassroots to organize and educate agricultural landowners and their neighbors on how to secure a bright future for farmers and farmland.

We are proud of the progress that Pennsylvania has made and will continue our efforts to make this kind of success a reality in communities across the nation.

If you are interested in the history of farmland protection, particularly how agriculture land trusts are able to protect our nation’s working lands, listen to this recent interview on An Organic Conversation featuring our former president and a leader in the farmland protection movement, Ralph Grossi.

Or visit American Famland Trust’s Pennsylvania state page

About the Author: Jim Baird is Mid-Atlantic Director for the American Farmland Trust