Agriculture

Bay Program partners are working with farmers throughout the region to help control pollution from the Chesapeake watershed's approximately 9 million acres of farmland. Through state tributary strategies, farmers are implementing nutrient management plans and other innovative conservation practices, helping our stewards of the land become stewards of the Bay.

What is the current goal for reducing pollution from agriculture?

Since 1985, Bay Program partners have achieved approximately half of their goals to reduce nutrients and sediment from agricultural lands. Through implementation of the states' tributary strategies — clean-up plans for each river in the Bay watershed — the Bay Program expects that 52 percent of the agricultural nitrogen goal and 77 percent of the agricultural phosphorus goal will be achieved by 2010. Federal, state and non-governmental organizations are lending financial, technical and regulatory resources to support the tributary strategies.

In part because they are so cost-effective, the Bay states are relying on expanded use of agricutlural conservation practices for more than half of the remaining nutrient reductions needed to meet overall Bay restoration goals.

What are some common agricultural conservation practices?

As part of their tributary strategies, the Bay states are implementing nutrient management plans and key conservation practices, also known as best management practices or BMPs. Some conservation practices are voluntary or incentive-based, while others — such as nutrient management planning for all agricultural operations in Maryland — are mandatory.

Nutrient management planning

A nutrient management plan is a written, site-specific plan that helps to reduce nutrient pollution while optimizing crop production and farm profits. Even farms under the best nutrient management plans will still contribute some nutrients to the environment; however, the amount should be less than what would be contributed without a plan.

Nutrient management plans are tailored to each specific site, but generally contain:

• Soil information for a particular field or operation.
• A field's crop yield potential and the amount of nutrients needed to achieve this yield.
• Recommended application rates for manure or commercial fertilizers, based on the amount of nutrients to be applied and nutrient carryover from previous applications and crop rotations.

Cover crops

Cover crops, planted in fall after the autumn harvest, usually consist of cereal grains like wheat, rye and barley that grow throughout winter. Once established, cover crops absorb excess nutrients in the soil and help prevent soil erosion, keeping local waters clean and healthy.

In addition to helping the Bay, cover crops benefit farmers by retaining nutrients for future crop needs, reducing soil compaction and increasing organic matter in the soil. Cover crops also help block out harmful weeds.

Animal manure and poultry litter

There are multiple solutions for reducing nutrient loads from animal manure and poultry litter, which contribute about half of the nutrients that come from Bay watershed farmland. In addition to nutrient management plans, Bay states have committed in their tributary strategies to reduce nutrients from manure and litter by working with farmers to:

• Properly apply manure and litter to cropland.
• Develop animal waste storage systems.
• Restrict animals from streams.
• Relocate livestock facilities away from streams.
• Transport excess manure and litter to areas in need.

The Bay Program's 2005 Manure Management Strategy identified four opportunities to better manage manure nutrients in the Bay watershed.

• Adjust animal diets to reduce surplus nutrients in animal manure and poultry litter.
• Foster alternative uses for animal manure and poultry litter nutrients by building markets and technologies for manure and litter products that can be used for energy, fertilizers, soil amendments or compost on a variety of lands.
• Develop a comprehensive inventory of manure and litter nutrient surpluses in the watershed.
• Coordinate manure management programs throughout the watershed to address regional imbalances of manure and poultry litter surpluses.

Grass and forested buffers

Grass and forested buffers planted at the edges of farm fields and livestock pastures reduce the amount of pollutants able to flow into adjacent streams and rivers. Trees and other vegetation also stabilize stream banks, as well as slow and absorb polluted runoff that would otherwise flow off fields and into local waterways.

Conservation tillage

Conservation tillage is any tillage planting system that leaves at least 30 percent of a farm field covered with crop residue or vegetation throughout the year. By reducing tillage or leaving the soil undisturbed, fields are less prone to erosion. No-till and minimum-till farming are forms of conservation tillage.