Chesapeake Bay Report: 650,000 Ag and Forest Acres Conserved in 16 Months

MORGANTOWN, WV, April 4, 2012—A new report from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) shows that with NRCS assistance; Chesapeake Bay region farmers, forestland owners, and other partners put conservation practices on 650,000 acres of working land between May 2010 and September 2011. That amount of acres nearly equals the land area of the state of Rhode Island.

“WV farmers and forest landowners in the bay watershed are voluntarily stepping up and implementing conservation practices needed to protect and sustain natural resources, agriculture and their communities,” said NRCS Acting State Conservationist, Louis Aspey. “A lot of work still needs to be done, and we look forward to working with even more conservation-minded people, groups and government agencies in the years ahead.”

The Chesapeake Bay 2011 Activities Report also states that farmers and forestland owners put nearly 61,000 conservation practices on agricultural land in the Bay region during NRCS’ 2011 fiscal year. Popular practices included manure management, planting grasses along streams as well as other methods of preventing sediments and nutrients from entering waterways that feed into the bay.

These efforts support actions underway through the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative (CBWI). NRCS provides technical and financial assistance through CBWI to agricultural producers to help them apply conservation practices that benefit the bay and waterways in the bay watershed. In 2011, WV had 130 CBWI contracts that provided $4,873,000 of financial assistance to producers in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed counties.

Download a copy of the report and learn more about CBWI at http://go.usa.gov/mq0. For information about NRCS in West Virginia at http://www.wv.nrcs.usda.gov/.

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