ARKANSAS - Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Wildlife

"When this newest program [Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)] came along, I saw I could have my cake and eat it too. I saw an opportunity to put in a corridor for wildlife and at the same time straighten out some lines on the farm and not have so much turning on the corners." So says Burt Haralson who has about 5,000 acres along a mile and a quarter of the White River in Arkansas. He grows soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and milo on about 3,000 acres; the rest is in sloughs, forests--"a little of this, a little of that." Haralson has been high on CRP since it began and has had about 400 acres in the program. As his CRP contracts have expired, he has re-enrolled some of the land and is adding new acreage for buffers. Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) District Conservationist Doug McClellan says, "Burt has a smorgasbord of CRP--some pine trees, some wetlands under restoration through CRP, and some riparian area."

"I have to weigh what property is worth to me as a farmer," Haralson says. "I can take a little here and there to get something done that should be done for other reasons, such as helping wildlife, reducing erosion, and helping water quality. I have a number of small pieces where a stream makes an odd meander and 3 to 4 or 10 to 12 acres have grown up in cypress or brush and timber. It's not really harvestable, but it's good cover for wildlife--whitetail deer, squirrels, raccoons, possums, rabbits; and there's a world of ducks and geese that come through and even winter here. It may be 'worthless' in one respect, but it's wonderful in others." Haralson says the area is internationally recognized as the equal of the Everglades and the Okefenokee--"so we're sitting at a table with some of the big important places on this planet."

Franklin Collier was clearing around 20,000 to 25,000 acres of black swampland to grow soybeans, rice, and wheat. Now, however, he farms about 6,000 to 7,000 acres on his place between the White and Cache rivers near Augusta. "I did a 180 [-degree turn], quit clearing land, and started planting trees." In 1985 he sold 800 acres to the Nature Conservancy (TNC)--"at a bargain price," TNC says--to launch the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge and, more recently, enrolled 2,500 acres in the Wetlands Reserve Program.

"Even when I was clearing land," Collier says, "in 99 percent of the cases we skipped back 50-150 yards away from the river--and sometimes even further. That gives you room for silt and keeps the river from washing." He's putting 20- to 30-foot grass filters on all his ditches which he says also "stop a lot of silt. I've tried to put all those strips in trees, but it's expensive. I've tried to do as much as I could on my own, and if the government has planted trees that didn't take, I've gone in and replanted on my own nickel." Besides NRCS, a number of others have been involved in the projects on Collier's place, according to McClellan, including Ducks Unlimited, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.

When he began tree planting, Collier used seedlings; but in 1995 he tried an experiment. He planted 790 acres with 200,000 acorns and nuts (nuttall oak and sweet pecan) using conventional practices, treating the land just as he would had he been planting soybeans. "The survival rate was excellent," says McClellan. The NRCS forester for Arkansas checked the site in November of 1997.

Collier seems satisfied on several counts. "We don't have the erosion. I'm not even losing soil or sediment to the river. I'm getting paid back all the way and it's wonderful. But, wildlife is really what it's all about," he adds. "I'd like to see other farmers use a certain percentage of their ground for farming and leave 25 percent for wildlife. One of these days, if we don't conserve and put land back in trees, we're going to be in a heap of trouble."

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