New York - Erosion Control, Water Management, Local Partnerships

At 1,200 acres, Chris and Rick Fesko's farm on the hillside east of Skaneateles Lake is the largest farm in the watershed, and has the largest number of animals (250 Holstein milkers and 150 young stock). They also raise corn, hay, oats, wheat, and soybeans. Chris is a former teacher who, along with her work on the farm, now makes award-winning children's educational videos on farm life (her most recent, "Fixin' on the Farm," won the national Telly award).

The Feskos have been cooperating with the Onondaga Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) for several years. They will be adding new best management practices through the Skaneateles Lake Watershed Agricultural Program to the buffer practices they've long had in place. According to Jeff Ten Eyck, Skaneateles Program Manager, a team comprised of an agronomist with the SWCD, an economist from Cornell Cooperative Extension, and an engineer with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) worked with the Feskos over several months to develop their farm plan. The plan includes such things as a barnyard runoff management system, buffer strips, and fencing cattle out of a few small streams. The Feskos also expect to enroll a few acres in the continuous Conservation Reserve Program sign-up for a riparian buffer. The investments might run as high as $150,000 with assistance coming from NRCS, Farm Service Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, New York State, and the City of Syracuse.

Chris thinks it's basic: "The whole thing is, we need soil to farm with and that's where it begins. We've had buffers for eons because we don't want erosion. We don't have much topsoil because we're up on top [above Skaneateles Lake]. We could have wind erosion, but we don't because we have planted trees--the 200 I planted 10 years ago are really big now." The Feskos also have the deep ravines typical of the Finger Lakes region, "so we have centuries of erosion there." She says her father-in-law began the conservation efforts "back in the 1940s because he needed dirt to farm here in the uplands. The bottom line was, and is, survival. And Rick is an excellent steward of the land, too; he sees it as his bounden duty to take care of it."

Chris says that she and her husband "have been doing okay on the physical elements of water management--buffers, stripcropping, and so on." She draws the analogy to wine making: "you filter and filter it until it is clear, as our buffers are filtering the water or Skaneateles Lake. For other aspects though, like nutrient management, we haven't known very much." The Watershed Agricultural Program has been monitoring nutrients in the watershed to work with farmers to reduce their levels in the lake. Fesko says, "this has saved us a lot of money. Now, we're seeing less [money] output for fertilizer input, and we're seeing a financial return. It's good that they will pay not only for the practices, but also for monitoring to help us gauge our inputs and pay some rent on land we take out of production." Ten Eyck believes that is exactly how farm planning is supposed to work. He says, "We want farmers to feel they can do the things they need to do in terms of their business and from an environmental perspective."

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