Connecticut - Riparian Areas, Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

Ben and Matt Freund have about 235 Holsteins on their 350-acre dairy farm in northwestern Connecticut on the Blackberry River, a tributary of the Housatonic River which flows into Long Island Sound. In late 1997, they enrolled about 16 acres in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for riparian forest buffers on both sides of the river and 13 acres of open and wooded upland wetland. The contract is for 15 years; the rental rate is $61 per acre.

The Freunds already had perimeter and paddock fencing. They fence to keep their cows out of the Blackberry River, its feeder streams, and the upland wetland. This was done when they converted to rotational grazing in 1995. Earlier, when the land along the stream was unfenced, Ben said, "the cattle went everywhere, so they walked through and nibbled the lower branches of the shrubs. But, the riparian fencing is protecting the established cherry and elm and enabling alders, maples, and oaks to re-grow naturally." Two cattle crossings limit the cows' access to the river. Ben says he's always supplied his cattle with well water so they wouldn't drink from the river, and to assure that "they all get healthy water."

In addition to the CRP rental payments from the Farm Service Agency and a 20 percent sign-up incentive payment, help for various components of the project came from the Litchfield County Conservation District and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection through its Rivers Restoration Program, according to Kathy Johnson, Natural Resources Conservation Service Project Coordinator for the Housatonic Valley. In the hilly country of northwestern Connecticut, she says, "the biggest challenge is not to take too much of the best farmland along rivers and streams, and not to push people to farm steeper hills." She adds that the biggest benefits are in water quality and wildlife corridors. Indeed, Ben boasts of the family of mink living in the protected wetland and the coyotes--"cleaning up rabbits and pheasants"--that can be seen even in the daytime. Even so, he says, "we still might want to add a 20-foot wildlife corridor--even if the animals are kept out of the streams, there is no eroding cropland and water quality is stable."

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