Dear Colleagues,
As part of the series of memos describing our different programs, I wanted to give a brief update on The Campbell Foundation’s approach to working with agriculture in our quest for a healthier Chesapeake Bay.
Our approach: We engage those who work directly with the land to better align conservation with farm economic viability, all the while considering current science and state-of-the-art conservation methods. This demands a mindset that is open to creative strategies, and has afforded us some compelling lessons.
The first is to make room for collaboration. After reorienting our approach to working with agriculture in 2015, we’ve come to know a wider range of perspectives on how to make progress on our goals for the Chesapeake. Our experiences over the past 10 years have shown that it is possible to get beyond the battle lines and engage in problem-solving together. Both the Delmarva Land and Litter Collaborative, which brings together stakeholders from agriculture, environmental groups, regulatory agencies, academia, and the chicken industry to support a profitable and environmentally sound agriculture industry on the Delmarva Peninsula, and the Lancaster Clean Water Partners, a partnership of over 60 partner organizations that works to restore and sustain healthy Lancaster County waterways, are great examples of this collaborative approach.
Second, we must maintain our engagement of science. There has long been community concern associated with ammonia emanating from chicken houses and its effect on human health and water quality. We began to look more deeply into this issue several years ago, and were surprised to find no existing data on ammonia levels in the region. We seized the opportunity to provide some much-needed information on the issue and sponsored the first ambient air monitors on the Delmarva. We worked with the Delmarva Chicken Association, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and the Maryland Department of the Environment to design and implement a sampling system and share the data continuously with the public. We continue to sponsor the project, now with three years of publicly-available data for use in decision making and more sample sites than when we began.
Third, we have learned to encourage positive action without restricting choices. Conservation stewards need incentives that both make economic sense and also stimulate actions to improve ecosystem health. We are helping our partners build solutions that increase nutrient use efficiency, utilize manure more precisely, and engage agricultural retailers and crop advisors in improved economic viability. Our thinking also considers funding barriers: farmers and landowners have long needed a more streamlined path to dollars for conservation adoption. We commissioned an assessment of impediments to accessing agricultural funding and we recommended agency actions to update current processes. This critique has been widely supported by conservation providers, farmers, and agencies. It has helped expedite a USDA cooperative agreement to create certification programs for TSP’s and has been included in the Committee draft for the next Farm Bill. We continue to seek good ideas that enable opportunity without relying on constraining policies.
Lastly, we need to use technology to put a finer point on farmer actions and calibrate the conservation outcomes, so we invest in groups like Chesapeake Conservancy and The Commons, and are developing a “Conservation Concierge,” a new initiative to assist landowners in navigating the funding landscape for agricultural practices.
Lots of folks believe that attacking agriculture will bring about progress in conservation. We believe that agriculture is an essential partner. Everyone needs what agriculture produces, and we also need to reduce environmental footprints where possible. While there is a role for regulation, our orientation is to work with farmers and others to build trustful partnerships and support lasting stewardship.
Thank you for your hard work,
Alex Echols (he/him)
Program Strategist, Agriculture
The Campbell Foundation
campbellfoundation.org