It’s almost Earth Day. And along with this year’s volunteer trash pick ups and tree plantings, celebrations and speeches around our region, there will be people taking steps to improve the environment in a quiet but determined way. Earth Day is in springtime when farmers come out of their winter planning to plant their crops into warming soil. Included in their plans, beyond how much harvest they hope for, are a host of conservation practices aimed at stewarding the land they work and minimizing impacts on streams, rivers and the Bay.

Farmers invest in these sound land management practices on their own and in partnership with others. This year, after a hard fought battle that farmers waged along side land preservation, environmental groups and the majority of our region’s congressional delegation, there is far more federal money going to assist farmers in protecting our air and water.

In the Shenandoah Valley, farmers who are part of the Waste Solutions Forum will be using flexible electric wire to keep cows out of the streams. Funding comes in part from the Chesapeake Bay Funders network. In Pennsylvania, a group of farmers who work with American Farmland Trust (AFT) will try lowering their fertilizer use on fields where there may be sufficient residues to grow their new crop. Farmers on the Eastern Shore in both Maryland and Delaware are going high tech with sophisticated computer equipment that shows precisely where to apply fertilizers; putting it on the acres that need it most but resulting in less being applied on the farm as a whole.

As Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley puts it, “Farmers, like homeowners and all residents of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, play an important role in protecting our soil and water resources.” It is a priority of the O’Malley-Brown Administration to “protect the health of the Bay for all to enjoy and to strengthen the family farms that anchor our rural communities and economies, preserve productive land, and provide a local source of food. Farmers are strong partners in conservation.” The Maryland Department of Agriculture launched a campaign last spring that urges citizens to take tips from farmers about how to cut back on pesticide use, reduce soil erosion and manage fertilizers wisely.

Earth day is an important reminder of all we must do to meet the challenge of restoring the Bay. It will require a concerted effort from all its citizens and governments and business – including farms. Indeed, a PBS Frontline documentary: “Poisoned Water” will air this week on water quality and makes this point eloquently.

AFT agrees with the point made in that film, that farmers like everyone else, can and must be part of the solution, and everyone living in the Bay watershed must do more. In order to do so, some farmers will need technical expertise to learn new practices or additional resources to help implement them. Some will argue that we need to get tough with farmers, and for a few that may be necessary. But farmers have been and will be an ever more important part of the water quality solution in our region. Farmers can make pollution reductions at a lower cost than can factories, utilities or the residential sector. Well-managed farmland can be a pollution solution, but only if that land remains in farming and doesn’t become just another parking lot.

We can clean up the Bay and we will. But we will do it because of our farms, not in spite of them.

Jim Baird, Mid Atlantic States Director
American Farmland Trust

Jim Baird is the Mid Atlantic States Director of American Farmland Trust (www.farmland.org), and a Mid Atlantic native. AFT is the leading national advocate for farm and ranch land conservation, working with communities to protect the best land, plan for growth with agriculture in mind, and keep the land healthy. By working with agriculture leaders to develop legislative solutions that support on-the-ground programs and encourage the widespread adoption of conservation practices, we can make significant progress toward improving our nation’s water quality while enhancing biodiversity, maintaining rural communities and stabilizing farmers’ income.