Minnesota - Wildlife Habitat, Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

"Dick Hufford always wanted to do something for wildlife, and now CRP [Conservation Reserve Program] is making it possible," says Stanley Musielewicz, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) District Conservationist in Stevens County. "Without the assistance from the government--what with real estate taxes and all--it's not really been feasible," Hufford says. Although it will take about five years to recoup his part of the cost of the improvements, there will be 10 years of income from the CRP rent. He and his sons own over half the 2,500 acres on which they raise corn, soybeans, alfalfa, wheat, cattle, and hogs. They use minimum-till to reduce wind and water erosion on their cropland.

About 20 acres are now in CRP, mostly for wildlife and wind and water erosion control. He has planted over 9 acres of trees--spruce, green ash, locust, dogwood, plum, and chokecherry--and 6 acres of switchgrass. In one field, Hufford has put in 6.5 acres of switchgrass along a riparian strip for habitat and erosion reduction, and on about 9 acres in the same field Pheasants Forever helped him plant 1,800 trees. Musielewicz says the trees were protected after planting with 6-foot-wide tree mulch fabric which keeps down weeds, eliminates the need for mowing, reduces soil erosion, holds soil moisture, and protects the trees. He describes the windbreaks: "We used shrub species on the windward side and at least two rows of tall trees (evergreen) for wildlife benefits and wind erosion control. This will look like the 1930s vintage wind strips where there's lots of wildlife." Hufford's next step will be to restore a wetland area between a 40-acre wetland already restored by a neighbor (under the Wetlands Reserve Program) and a Waterfowl Protection Area owned by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). "Stan and I think that will be ideal," Hufford says. "After all, I've farmed all my life and that land has been pretty good to me, so I'd like to put something back, for me and my grandkids."

Another farmer working with Musielewicz, Paul Dorweiler, says, "Fields are square; wildlife is crooked. So, wildlife and edges go together." Along one and a half miles of Muddy Creek are grass filter strips and riparian forest buffers, a meandering swath of ground for wildlife and birds, and squared off fields. "Farmers don't like curves. Before 1986, this was all farmed road-to-road, fence-to-fence. We had only a 2-foot strip for wind, and we had no birds, no game." But Dorweiler changed that--for both the birds and the tenants who operate his farm. "Having edges along cropped fields where cornstalks are left, the birds don't have to go far to eat, and the tenants say they don't want to go in there [along the creek's meanders] anyhow."

Assistance came from the FWS, NRCS, and Pheasants Forever, which helped with tree planting and food plots. But Dorweiler believes there should be even greater cooperation in managing private land for wildlife. He says, "Conservationists and government make a mistake when they think all this land is operated by farmers with equipment; that just isn't true. There has to be a partnership, a way to work with folks. Sometimes, all you need is the landowner's permission to install and keep up a food plot. After all," he adds, "most farmers like to farm along side the deer and with the ducks." To protect the ducks, Dorweiler says "you have to have enough grass so a fox or coyote can't just sniff from downwind. With 80 acres of grass, it makes the coyote and fox really work, and that helps nesting success."

Musielewicz says there has been "a huge amount of interest" in the continuous CRP sign-up. "When the program got down to intermittent streams and county legal drains, that really opened the door." The rental rate is slightly higher than for regular CRP ground, given the sign-up incentives and extra points for some environmental practices, Musielewicz says. There are close to 200 CRP contracts in Stevens County. There are 700 producers and roughly a third of them already have offered land for buffers.

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