Pennsylvania farmers still have time to help share their individual agriculture conservation stories by completing Penn State’s Survey Research Center’s best management practices survey. As of last week, about 5,000 farmers completed the survey.

Even so, an estimated 33,600 producers farm in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. So there’s still much ground to cover.

GOT IT COVERED: Conversion of cropland to intensive grazing systems is one common BMP that’s often not accounted for by EPA.

The trouble is, according to state Department of Environmental Protection records, only about 30% of farms are documented as being in compliance with water quality regulations. Most of those are larger farms. Yet many farmers have installed BMPs such as grass waterways, field and forest riparian buffer zones, cover crops, switch to no-till or min-till, conversion from cropland to intensively grazing and more – under the environmental radar. That’s what the survey expects to document.

Completing the survey takes only a few minutes either by a mail-in forms all farms should have received in recent weeks from Penn State University’s Survey Research Center. It can also be done online; see below. State ag leaders assure your ID and location won’t be released to governing agencies. The deadline is April 30.

The goal is to gather details about conservation practices you’ve installed – at your own expense – to protect your soils and crop nutrients from erosion and protect water quality in your greater rural community.  “We want to ensure that those efforts are accounted for and give producers credit for all they’re doing,” affirms Pa. Ag Secretary Russell Redding.  

“For decades many of Pennsylvania’s farmers have been doing the right thing – working to minimize any impairment to their local water quality. Many have been working toward these goals on their own.”

Who’ll see your response

Data on these non-cost-shared BMPs will be aggregated by Penn State’s research center. Some 10% of participants will be selected randomly for farm visits by Penn State Extension to assess inventory results. No individually identifiable information will be available beyond this research level, affirms Richard Roush, dean of Penn State’s College of Ag Sciences.

Once the survey data is aggregated, it’ll be submitted to the state Department of Environmental Protection for review and analysis. Then DEP will share those findings with U.S. EPA.

“Penn State also has extra protection regarding access to data via the Freedom of Information Act and EPA,” points out Roush.  “Penn State is not a federal agency, and there’s some protection there. Data is gathered for research purposes, and there’s protection there as well.”

Up to this point, Pennsylvania has reported only those conservation BMPs funded in whole or partly by state or federal dollars. This survey quantifies those BMPs and allows for federally-approved documentation of the accuracy of this self-reported data through follow-up farm visits.

“We need everyone’s input,” urges Redding. “The more we can quantify our good work, the further we are toward agriculture’s nutrient reduction goals.”

Visit http://src.survey.psu.edu/farmbmp to take the survey online, or call Penn State’s Survey Research Center at 866-898-4277 and reference the “PA Farm Conservation Practices Inventory Project” to receive a hardcopy survey.

Suggestion: When taking the survey, have your conservation and nutrient management plans on hand for reference. Again, responses will remain confidential and will never be associated with your name or location.

For more background on the state’s strategy, click on Pa. faces clean water regulatory armageddon.

For more details on about the strategy, visit www.agriculture.pa.gov, Click on “Protect”, “State Conservation Commission” and “Chesapeake Bay.”