Partnership with Land Trust
Bearing Fruit
The Pasture Project's first partnership with a land trust, our work with the Mississippi Valley Conservancy (MVC), a land trust working in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin, has begun to show promising results. Working together with landowners, and the Kickapoo Grazing Initiative (KGI), we have begun the process of converting three farms from row crops to managed grazing.
We hope this partnership will serve as a model that we can expand to work with other trusts and conservancies. Land trust partnerships have the potential to be very productive, because the land trust's portfolio represents a pre-selected group of landowners with an interest in conservation. These landowners control acreage protected through conservation easements, assuring potential tenants that their investments in fencing and watering systems are not put at risk when farm bill programs change. The Pasture Project and KGI provide critical expertise in the areas of grazing guidance, site reviews, lease/producer options, and capital expenditures, including the use of EQIP for fencing and water.
Pasture People: Barbara Eggers
Pasture People is a new monthly feature of the Pasture Project Newsletter, highlighting the diverse approaches and personalities of people working to increase land under sustainable management.
Barbara Eggers’ soft-spoken manner, Washingtonian wardrobe, and strawberries-and-cream swirled hair belies her love of roller derby, her creative approach to conservation, and the very 21st-century path that her career has taken.
The Pasture Project is lucky to have Barbara Eggers, Natural Resources Specialist at the NRCS Conservation Technical Assistance Division, working with us this year as a USDA Executive on Loan. She is researching the feasibility of ecosystem service payment and trading approaches as a way to create incentives for grass fed production in the Driftless Area, balancing the often-competing interests of agriculture, industry, conservation, and tourism. Barbara implemented a similar initiative in her native Oklahoma earlier in her career, facilitating partnerships around the poultry processing industry to mitigate run-off pollution. Her success with the poultry producers served as a personal proof of concept for the effectiveness of private partnerships.
Barbara’s career has been characterized by her out-of-the-box approach. Barbara raised a family before embarking on her career with NRCS, transitioning into the workforce as a soil conservation technician with a local NRCS field office. As she rose through the ranks of the Oklahoma NRCS, she took an active role in mentoring women, creating supportive partnerships within the workplace. Relocating to the DC area was a new adventure for Barbara, a self-described country girl, but she has embraced the city's lifestyle and oppotunities, continuing her rise within the national NCRS office to her current position. As she completes her training for the NRCS Senior Executive Service, she alone in her class has chosen to reach outside of the agency to work with a non-profit in order to gain perspective, build her network, and share her creative approach.
Barbara is a consensus builder who can bring together diverse interests and facilitate solutions. Applying her non-traditional vision to conservation through managed grazing in the Driftless Area is helping the Pasture Project to expand its work in the region.
Internship Opportunity
The Pasture Project is looking for an intern in our Arlington, VA office, to start in May. The position will focus on communications, but will include opportunities to work and learn in multiple areas of our program. We are particularly interested candidates with agricultural experience. The position is paid. Full details are available here.
