DELMARVA – Poultry industry stakeholders and environmentalists are teaming up to bring best practices to local farms.
Furnishing Funding
The Delmarva Chicken Association (DCA), Nanticoke Watershed Alliance, and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay (ACB) have started cost-share programs in Chesapeake Bay watersheds across Delmarva, aiming to promote conservation.
The three organizations are providing more than $1 million, to match a three-year effort, supported by a $997,327 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s (NFWF) Chesapeake Innovative Nutrient and Sediment Reduction Grants Program. The program is administered through NFWF and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Cost of Conservation
Farmers awarded with the funding will be able to use it for improving natural buffers, precision nutrient management, conservation drainage, and litter management. Those who participate in the program can be eligible for complete cost coverage on conservation initiatives.
“We have a lot of growers who want to do more for their farm, that want to do more for conservation; but at the end of the day, some of these practices are costly,” said DCA Executive Director, Holly Porter. We want to be there to help streamline this process, and make it really simple for a grower to say, ‘This is what I want from conservation on my farm. How can I make it happen?’”
Bolstering Buffers, Planting Pollinators
The projects won’t be one-size-fits-all. Awardees could choose to plant trees around farm perimeters; or, farmers could plant natural buffers near retention ponds.
“The native plants really help to pull in any excess nutrients and dust,” said Nanticoke Watershed Alliance Executive Director, Lisa Wool. “But they also kind of filter out any of that possible dust and pollutants.”
Another mission is to create pollinator meadows on farms. To do so, farmers would have to plant native wildflowers in grassy…
