{"id":25106,"date":"2021-02-10T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-02-10T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/?p=25106"},"modified":"2021-02-10T12:58:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-10T17:58:00","slug":"10-million-in-conservation-assistance-now-available-for-maryland-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2021\/02\/10\/10-million-in-conservation-assistance-now-available-for-maryland-farmers\/","title":{"rendered":"$10 Million in Conservation Assistance Now Available for Maryland Farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4><strong><i>Funds Will Help Livestock Farmers Manage Manure to Improve Water Quality<\/i><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><b>ANNAPOLIS, MD <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u2013 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) today announced that $10 million in conservation assistance<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is now<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> available to help livestock farmers in northern Maryland counties install best management practices on their farms to improve manure management and protect water quality in streams, rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay. Counties eligible for assistance include Allegany, Baltimore, Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, and Washington.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI am excited to announce that this new funding will provide livestock farmers with the resources they need to protect our natural resources and to help Maryland meet its Chesapeake Bay cleanup goals,\u201d said Maryland Agriculture Secretary Joe Bartenfelder. \u201cThe Maryland Department of Agriculture is staunchly committed to working with our regional partners to protect the health of the bay and to make it as easy as possible for our farmers to do so.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This funding comes from the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) agreement awarded in 2020 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA\u2019s) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The funding assistance will be available for five years. Maryland\u2019s RCPP proposal was developed to help the state meet its agricultural nutrient reduction goals for the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries by providing farmers with targeted solutions to improve the way they manage manure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>The application period is open now through March 19<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Conservation practices funded by this agreement include a range of stream protection practices and barnyard management practices that have been shown to improve water quality.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stream protection practices eligible for funding include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Livestock exclusion fencing to keep animals out of streams;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Livestock stream crossings;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Alternative water facilities for livestock; AND<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Riparian forest buffers planted next to streams to control erosion and nutrient runoff.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Barnyard best management practices eligible for funding include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Animal waste storage facilities;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Livestock heavy use areas to improve mud and manure management;<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roof runoff structures to safely convey rainwater runoff away from the barnyard area; AND<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roofs and covers installed over waste management facilities.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maryland farmers are encouraged to contact their<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/resource_conservation\/Pages\/technical_assistance.aspx\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">local soil conservation districts<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as soon as possible to get their projects evaluated and ranked following NRCS standards. Visit MDA\u2019s<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/mda.maryland.gov\/resource_conservation\/Pages\/default.aspx\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">website<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for more information on Maryland\u2019s resource conservation programs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"># # #<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow Maryland Department of Agriculture on Twitter<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/mdagdept\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">@MdAgDept<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Funds Will Help Livestock Farmers Manage Manure to Improve Water Quality ANNAPOLIS, MD \u2013 The Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) today announced that $10 million in conservation assistance is now available to help livestock farmers in northern Maryland counties install best management practices on their farms to improve manure management and protect water quality in<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2021\/02\/10\/10-million-in-conservation-assistance-now-available-for-maryland-farmers\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25108,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25106\/revisions\/25108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}