Conservation Planning - Don't Be Led Anywhere
Don’t Be Led Anywhere, Plan Ahead
by Dastina Wallace, PAS, Delaware
If you’re like most people, you don’t just wake up one morning and say “I’m going to travel the world today.” It likely wouldn’t work anyway because world travel involves planning – there’s documentation, airline reservations, lodging availability, a budget, and more.
The same is true for achieving the desired objectives on your farm--planning is the key. Whether you own hundreds of acres or just a few, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) can help you develop a conservation plan to better manage the assets on your farm. A conservation plan can help you get to where you want to go.
Whether you grow cash crops, produce vegetables, raise poultry or livestock, or manage forestland, a conservation plan can work for you. During the conservation planning process, a certified conservation planner will work with you to understand your objectives and the resource needs of the land. Based on sound scientific practices, the planner will work with you to develop a plan specific to your operation that provides focus to activities that will help meet your land use and natural resource goals.
As a poultry or livestock producer, a plan could help you determine the need for a manure storage or waste separation facility. As a grain farmer, a plan could help you identify practices to improve your bottom line and soil health including cover crops, reduced tillage and irrigation water management. A soil health assessment can be completed to determine your soil’s potential. As part of the planning process, NRCS can help you with practice designs or specifications, determine estimated costs and identify funding sources.
NRCS and the conservation districts have technical experts on the ground to help walk you through the steps of conservation planning. These include inventorying your natural resources, identifying problems and opportunities, offering solutions, recording your decisions and providing assistance to help implement your conservation plan. This assistance is free and voluntary.
Here are a few of the many benefits to having a conservation plan:
- Save money as your land becomes more productive
- Increase sustainability by protecting the natural resources that support your business
- Conserve soil and water for periods of drought and future use
- Save time, money, and labor
- Help you become eligible for most USDA programs
A conservation plan combines your farming experience with the science-based knowledge of the conservation planner. It includes selected conservation practices, a reasonable schedule for installing these practices, and provides detailed information on every aspect of your practice recommendations.
Conservation planners can customize the plan to meet your goals, which might include lowering production costs, increasing crop yields, improving soil health or water quality, conserving soil, increasing forage production, or providing water for livestock. You choose the options that best fit your farm. The plan is a written record of your decisions.
There’s a saying from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” Don’t just settle for any result, let the conservation planners with NRCS and the conservation districts help you meet your serious farm goals.
Getting started is easy. Just call or stop by your local USDA Service Center. In Delaware, contact the following office in your respective county: in Sussex County, call 302-856-3990, ext 3; in Kent County, call 302-741-2600, ext. 3; and in New Castle County, call 302-832-3100, ext. 3. Additional contact information is available online at www.nrcs.usda.gov.
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