Agricultural Conservation Leasing

Sarah Everhart, Legal Specialist
University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

Last winter, agricultural service providers, such as Extension agents and staff from Soil Conservation Districts and NRCS, attended statewide Agricultural Conservation Leasing workshops co-hosted by Sarah Everhart, Agricultural Law Education Initiative (ALEI), University of Maryland Carey Law School and the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology, Inc. (Hughes Center). The workshops highlighted the importance of using a simple farm lease to support the implementation of best management practices on leased farmlands.

Conservation practices tend to be less common on leased acres for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to, instability in the leasing relationship, poor communication between landowners and farmers, and a lack of knowledge of practices and funding opportunities. In an effort to address these factors, the ALEI and the Hughes Center created the Agricultural Conservation Leasing Guide. The Leasing Guide is a great tool for both landowners and farmers. The first step in this process for most leasing parties is to contemplate and communicate their goals for the farming operation. The Leasing Guide contains communication strategies and tools to help parties take these vital first steps. For landowners who are unfamiliar with agriculture and/or on-farm conservation practices, the Leasing Guide contains an explanation of how the structure and term of a lease can impact conservation and descriptions of commonly used conservation practices. There are also considerations and sample lease language for conservation practices, useful for both landowners and farmers, within the Leasing Guide.

According to Everhart, “we tried to make it as easy as possible for folks to use a lease to both protect themselves and support the use of best management practices on the farm.  We heard from many farmers that maintenance of these practices can be an unwelcomed and often uncompensated addition to a farmer’s workload, so we included numerous ways to use lease language to equitably allocate responsibilities related to these practices.”

“We have been really pleased with number of farmers and landowners who have benefited from the Agricultural Conservation Leasing Project thus far. At this point, we estimate that, due to the Project, 45 farmers have incorporated conservation practices on leased farmland and we anticipate more to do so in the future”, said Nancy Nunn, Assistant Director, Hughes Center.

The ALEI and the Hughes Center are available to offer technical support and educational resources (leasing resources are available for download on the Hughes Center website (go.umd.edu/conservationleasing).  Anyone with questions about this project can contact Sarah Everhart, (410) 458-2475, severhart@law.umaryland.edu. The Project is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, through the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program under subaward number ENE18-151.

 

Impacts Best Management Practices Have On Water Quality: People Land Water – Review Of A Six Year Study

University of Maryland, Center for Environmental Science, Horn Point Laboratory press release

The Horn Point Laboratory invites you to join a half-day technical meeting, open to the public. The meeting will review six years of data gathered to evaluate the impact of best management practices (BMPs) implemented by farmers to improve water quality. The meeting will be held on Friday August 9, 2019, from 1-5 p.m. in Public Hearing Room #110 of the Caroline County government offices in Denton, MD (403 S. 7th Street, Denton, MD 21629). Parking is available around the building.

The meeting agenda includes: information on impediments to BMP implementation; a farmer panel reflecting their perspective on BMPs and water quality; results of water quality monitoring on farms where BMPs are installed at intermediate streams draining several farms and at the watershed outlets.

The research project is called “People Land Water” to emphasize that people living and working on the land contribute to the quality of the water leaving the land. Horn Point Laboratory professor, Tom Fisher, and his research team lead this project. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation, the United States Dept. of Agriculture, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Chesapeake Bay Trust, and the Harry R. Hughes Center for Agro-Ecology. The goals of the research are: (1) to obtain the cooperation of farmers to add BMPs to four small watersheds with long-term monitoring, (2) to evaluate farmers’ attitudes towards BMPs and water quality, (3) to examine the economic efficiency of BMPs, and (4) to test the biogeochemical efficiency of BMPs to retain nitrogen, phosphorus, and soil on farms and out of groundwater and streams.

Jim Lewis, University of Maryland Agriculture Extension Agent, shared this comment about the long-term study;

“It increases the confidence of farmers like me that the water quality data being collected by Tom Fisher’s research team is accurate because it is right at the site of our farms on the Choptank River. This is the kind of work on best management practice that the farm community wants to collaborate on.”

This meeting is an important element of the overall research project. The team will provide attendees with information they have gathered on the people living and working on the land, and the water quality of these four heavily monitored agricultural watersheds. Project leader, Tom Fisher Professor at UMCES – HPL, “My great hope is that we can figure out which Best Management Practices at least make sense and figure out how to properly compensate farmers to implement the ones that work best.”

Please add this event to your calendar and join the discussion of this project and its results.

For more information, contact Anne (410-221-8238 or abgust@umces.edu).

Register to this FREE program via EventBrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/water-quality-agriculture-in-the-choptank-watershed-tickets-63393297058. Space is limited to 110 people.

People Land Water Science Team: Tom Fisher, Rebecca Fox, Kalla Kvalnes, Anne Gustafson, Erika Koontz, Jim Lewis, Jon Winsten

Contact: Carin Starr, Community Relations Manager, (410) 221-8408; cstarr@umces.edu.

USDA Assistance Available for Repairing Conservation Practices on Maryland Farms

ANNAPOLIS, Md., August 8, 2018 – USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is providing technical and financial assistance to help farmers in Maryland repair failed conservation practices following recent severe storms and flash flooding. Producers in disaster declared counties including Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Caroline, Carroll, Dorchester, Frederick, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George’s, Somerset, Talbot, Washington, Wicomico, and Worcester must sign up for assistance by August 25, 2018.

The funding is available through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to address water quality concerns due to failure of ag waste systems, stream crossings, and other in-field conservation practices.

NRCS accepts EQIP applications year-round in a continuous signup. But landowners must submit their applications by August 25 to be considered for this disaster repair funding.  Farmers should visit with their local USDA service center to apply.