Farmers in Conservation Program Fared Better in Ohio Floods

Posted: 25-Feb-2008; Updated: 24-Apr-2008

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Karen Chapman, Water and Wildlife Analyst, Center for Conservation Incentives

Seen from the helicopter window last August, the difference was dramatic: On one Ohio farm, cropped to the property edge with soybeans, a third of the fields were completely under water. Yet other nearby farms had escaped the summer floods with little or no damage. Those farms were enrolled in the Western Lake Erie Basin Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.

Like many CREPs, the Lake Erie CREP is a joint federal-state program that aims to improve water quality. The program pays farmers to take acres along Lake Erie watershed streams or in flood-prone and marginal areas that are devoted to commodities like corn and soybeans and convert them to grass and tree “buffers,” wetlands or forested patches that filter pollutants and help detain sediments before they enter the stream.

Grass and tree buffers not only improve water quality but provide flood protection for farmers. (Photo: Todd Hesterman)

Draining 30,000 square miles, Lake Erie is the most biologically productive of the Great Lakes. Its water quality has improved since the 1960s, when a concerted effort began to clean up the lake and control point source pollution from heavy metals and phosphorus loading. Yet significant non-point source pollution continues to flow into the lake and its tributaries, primarily from rain and snowmelt carrying excess fertilizers and pesticides from both urban and agricultural lands; oil, grease and salt from highways; sediment from construction sites and eroding shorelines; and animal and human waste.

The Maumee River, which drains into Lake Erie over more land than any other tributary and flows through a heavily agricultural area in northwest Ohio, stands to benefit significantly from the Lake Erie CREP. “Flashy” streams in the Maumee watershed like the Blanchard River carry large amounts of sediment and nutrients when they flood. Last summer the Blanchard reached the 100-year flood stage near Findlay, Ohio, inundating tens of thousands of acres of farmland as well as Findlay and nearby Ottawa, Ohio.

Not long before the floods, I relocated from the Center for Conservation Incentives Austin, Texas office to my home state, where I now work as CCI’s Ohio project coordinator. To advance Lake Erie water quality, I partner with Lake Erie and Ohio-based groups.

Our Lake Erie outreach team includes retired USDA employees and crop consultants like Joe Nester of Nester Ag Management. They meet with farmers to discuss the benefits of CREP and another USDA program for working lands, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. EQIP funds farmers for leaving stubble in fields (“no till”), planting winter cover crops and limiting nutrient application through soil testing and yield observations.

Floodwaters washed brown silt over two Ohio farms, but on fields below the road, protected by a CREP-funded grass planting, the farmer still made money. (Photo: Todd Hesterman)

“For many farmers and landowners, CREP is a sure-fire solution for keeping soil on fields and boosting net profits,” says Joe Nester. The program provides a means of earning money on less economically viable land such as acres along ditch banks, streams and woodlands that are often best-suited for enrollment in a CREP practice. Crop analyses performed by Nester Ag Management have shown that in some fields these areas lower overall profits, even when yields are otherwise high and prices are good, providing another reason to consider enrolling these areas of farmland into a conservation program.

As described in an earlier article in this newsletter, CCI worked in 2006 with USDA agencies and state-level officials to give the Lake Erie CREP a facelift. The updated program offers farmers a wider selection of conservation practices to choose from and new state and federal incentives. Now farmers and other landowners can find even more opportunities to make money from conservation while helping to alleviate impacts from farmland runoff.

These incentives include per-acre bonuses for signing longer-term contracts, planting trees and restoring wetlands as well as higher rental payments for certain practices. When the federal cost share of 50 to 90% for putting the practice in place is added in, the program can, in many cases, provide a net per acre profit while also contributing to better water quality and reduced sediment and nutrient runoff.

Ohio’s Lake Erie CREP goal is 67,000 acres; currently some 30,000 acres are enrolled in the program. Since the western Lake Erie basin extends into southern Michigan and eastern Indiana as well, the CREP has been expanded into southern Michigan, and CCI staff are now working to include eastern Indiana. We’ve also worked successfully with Ohio NRCS to offer special incentives through EQIP for the high priority practices that directly target water quality improvements mentioned above. Indiana agencies took note and began adopting a similar strategy. 

For more information, see the Lake Erie CREP website. General information about CREP is at USDA’s web site and CCI’s web site.

Karen Chapman
Water and Wildlife Analyst
Center for Conservation Incentives
Environmental Defense