Participation in cover crop program hits all-time high

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor

CORDOVA, Md. — For the next crop year, Maryland has $15 million to spend on its cover crop program.
A total of 1,668 farmers are seeking funding on a total of 502,323 acres. Both of those figures are records. However, it offers questions to be asked:
• Is it possible that when the final figures are in, those record figures will have diminished and that the $15 million will not be consumed?
Yes, it is possible.
• It is also possible that, if that $15 million is not entirely expended on cover crop payments, what’s left could find its way into the nutrient management program at the University of Maryland to hire and train more people to write nutrient management plans?
Yes, that’s possible, too. But that could be a long journey.
Those scenarios were the topics of some conversations which occurred on Aug. 19 when Gov. Martin O’Malley, joined by Secretary of Agriculture Buddy Hance, journeyed from Annapolis to the Hutchison Brothers farm in Talbot County to formally announce the cover crop figures.
The acreage and farmer enrollment numbers represent 155 percent of the two-year Bay milestone for cover crops, they said.
So, what accounts for the impressive increase in the apparent popularity among farmers for the cover crop program?
Consider this, say those familiar with the program: Over the past two years, small grain growers have faced dry weather, poor quality grain, lowered yields and depressed prices at the receiving stations.
In the wake of those years, the cover crop program, under which a farmer can earn up to $95 an acre, sounded pretty good to 1,668 growers, at least at signup — which was from June 21 to July 15.
The question facing state officials now is how many of these growers will stay with the no-harvest program or opt instead for combining the grain for a cover crop program which pays only $25 an acre. And if they opt for harvest, will they increase the acreage they put in wheat and thus enroll increased acreage in the program.    
Last week, wheat prices hovered near $6 a bushel and many farmers already have signed $6 contracts.
The argument in favor of giving a desperately needed financial boost to the cover crop program is that, if enough farmers choose to flee the $95-an-acre program for $6 wheat, the $15 million pot should have some money left in it and that could reasonably go to its “sister” program in nutrient management. On the other hand, Royden Powell, who directs the cover crop program for the Maryland Department of Agriculture, believes that the entire  $15 million will be used for cover crop payments next year
All of these scenarios were pondered by officials both at Hutchison Brothers farm and at a later meeting of the state Soil Conservation Service officials at the Talbot County Ag Center.
John Swaine III, who farms at Royal Oak and who chairs the Talbot Soil Conservation District, argues that since the cover crop and nutrient management programs complement each other, any excess cover crop funding should, by whatever process is necessary, go to University Maryland Extension which administers the nutrient management program and which trains the specialists who write the nutrient management plans.
Swaine said he was encouraged when O’Malley, in private conversations at the Hutchison farm, indicated that such a plan was possible and later state SCS officials said they would “work on it.”
The university has said that if its nutrient management funds are cut off because of budget restrictions, it will cease to be committed to the program.
There have been suggestions, Swaine said, that the program could then be assumed by the Soil Conservation Districts. That is not likely to be a popular transfer of responsibility. The SCDs are “stand alone” organizations. They are not government agencies.
Thus, they would be allowed to charge for writing a nutrient management plan, and probably would have to do so, Swaine said.
During the Governor’s appearance at the Hutchison farm, it also was announced that the Department of Agriculture has received a new $600,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to implement a cutting-edge cover crop management tool that will be made available to inform the Bay model. 
This tool, it was explained, uses remote sensing to look at fields planted with cover crops to determine how efficient they are at taking up nutrients. 
Farmers will also receive reports on their fields so they can better manage the cover crop.
Further, O’Malley announced MDA’s Conservation Tracker database system.
Conservation Tracker is a new system piloted in Talbot County to provide an accurate accounting of best management practices in use on Maryland farms.
Conservation Tracker is used to inform BayStat reporting and tracks Maryland’s 2011 “Milestones for Chesapeake Bay.” 
The new system, which became operational in September 2009, provides a geo-referenced profile of the location of BMPs installed on Maryland farms and calculates the nutrient reduction credits Maryland farmers receive for all their efforts.
Currently, the program includes only those practices with government funding involved. The plan is to expand to include those BMPs that the farmer has paid for and maintained.
It will help MDA target technical and financial resources to areas that can achieve the greatest water quality benefits, officials said.