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NEWS
New EQIP Funding for Honeybee Conservation
The USDA NRCS just announced that it will be providing nearly $3 million in technical and financial assistance for interested landowners, farmers, and ranchers to help improve the health of honey bees in five Midwestern states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The funding will be provided through EQIP and will cover conservation practices such as cover crop implementation or improved pasture management. For more information click here. Applications are due March 21, 2014.
New Webinar
Now available on our website is a recent webinar by Dr. Allen Williams titled Opportunities in Grazing Management: Controlling Endophyte Infested Fescue Pastures. Tall fescue is a major cool-season perennial grass, covering about 35 million acres of pasture in the U.S. Endophyte infestation is a major issue in most tall fescue fields, causing significant detrimental health effects on livestock when grazed. Allen walks through an approach to replacing highly infected pastures using adaptive high stock density grazing. He demonstrates that effective grazing is a highly efficient and affordable means of fescue pasture renovation, while simultaneously building soil organic matter, enhancing water retention, and reducing fertilizer and herbicide inputs.
Conference Recap
Many of us involved in the Pasture Project have been on the conference circuit lately, spreading the word about our work and the benefits of grass-fed beef. Here are a couple highlights:
Sustainable Farming Association's Midwest Soil Health Summit
SFA's first annual Soil Health Summit kicked off February 19th with farmers coming from Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Saskatchewan, and even Australia to learn from soil health pioneers Gabe Brown and Richard Bieber as well as soil research expert Wendy Taheri, SFA's own expert Kent Solberg, Burleigh County's Jay Fuhrer, and Ryan Stockwell of the National Wildlife Federation. The sold-out "Gab with Gabe" reception, where ten ticket-holders were treated to an intimate audience with Gabe Brown and SFA's John Mesko, was a huge hit. Especially helpful was the session Kent Solberg led on cover cropping, an inspirational discussion jam-packed with knowledge.
North Central SARE’s Cover Crops Conference
The conference, held in Omaha Nebraska, brought together a diverse set of agricultural stakeholders, including farmers and farm organizations, commodity groups, agribusiness, federal and state agencies, foundations, universities and conservation organizations. These groups don’t always see eye to eye however at this conference there was consensus around the need to expand the use of cover cropping within row cropping systems. Conference organizers, led by Dr. Rob Myers of SARE, put a stake in the ground by setting the goal at 20 million acres using cover crops by 2020. Says John Fisk, Wallace Center Director, “I was inspired by the sincere interest in addressing issues of soil quality while at the same time looking for ways to address challenges to using cover crops such as seeding, soil moisture, and costs. Grazing cover crops came up both in the plenary sessions and in breakout sessions helping the audience to understand that if it works in your farm plan, grazing cover crops can increase soil biological activity and nutrient cycling and help may cover cropping a better investment.” Recordings of conference sessions are available at: http://www.sare.org/Events/National-Conference-on-Cover-Crops-and-Soil-Health
Save the Date
Grazing Workshop on Pasture Lease Relationships
Southwest Badger RC&D will be hosting a grazing workshop, Forming Pasture Lease Relationships, to serve as a meet-and-greet between landowners and grazing producers on March 22 at the Iowa County Health and Human Services Building in Dodgeville, WI. This will be a great networking event for anyone interested in renting or leasing land for managed livestock grazing. Contact Erin Holmes at 608-935-2791 for more information or to register.
Workshop for Female Farmland Owners
The Woman, Food and Agriculture Network (WFAN), in partnership with the Wisconsin NRCS and Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), will be hosting a free workshop aimed at improving conservation outreach to non-operator female farmland owners in Wisconsin. This growing but underserved audience is crucial to increasing the adoption of conservation practices on all types of farmland in the state. The event will be held Wednesday, March 19th at the Wisconsin State Office of the USDA NRCS in Madison, WI. Contact Leigh Adcock at leigh@wfan.org to register.
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