Many Pennsylvania farmers taking voluntary action to improve water quality, survey finds

Many farmers across the Pennsylvania portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed have taken voluntary action to improve water quality, according to research from Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. Results of the study were presented to the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Agriculture Workgroup, which approved the survey methodology and recommended that the verified practices be credited in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model.

Agricultural conservation practices reduce the runoff of pollution: for example, planting cover crops help prevent nutrients from running off cropland, while streamside buffers can uptake nutrients before they enter waterways, stabilize stream banks and provide habitat for wildlife. The research effort—funded in part by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)—provides the first comprehensive inventory of conservation practices farmers have voluntarily implemented to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution flowing into streams, rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

The PSU Survey results were presented to the Bay Program's Agriculture Workgroup at their December 15 meeting. The Workgroup approved the survey methodology and recommended its use in the effort to document and verify practices in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Model. The latest version of this model, Phase 6, is currently under development and review.

In early 2016, 6,782 farmers from 41 counties in Pennsylvania’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed completed the survey. More than 700 respondents were then randomly selected for farm visits, which confirmed farmers were accurate in their reporting. Respondents reported voluntarily implementing a range of agricultural conservation practices, including 475,800 acres of nutrient management plans, 228,264 acres of conservation plans, 7,565 acres of grass and forested streamside buffers and more than 1.3 million feet of fencing along streambanks.

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