Environmental markets workshops
Washington Ag Today November 8, 2010 American Farmland Trust has arranged six workshops to help Washington state farmers, ranchers and conservation professionals understand how to be paid full value for environmental services. Don Stuart of American Farmland Trust in Washington says through new environmental markets buyers are now paying farmers and ranchers to adopt conservation practices that are well-known and widely accepted in the agricultural industry. Carbon credits are among the best known but Stuart says there are other opportunities. Stuart: “Another, sometimes there is wildlife habitat where you might have a development going in that is going to harm some endangered species or something. And in order to mitigate for that damage they might make arrangements with a farmer to provide some of that habitat. Usually those are things that can be done while the farmer continues to farm and really doesn‘t really have that big of an impact on their farming operation. But it can have great benefit for wildlife and the result can be the farmer gets paid and paid in full.” Stuart says while government regulation is the driver these are private markets. The workshops all run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and the first one is tonight in Wenatchee at Cascadia Conservation District. Tuesday November 9th there will be a workshop in Walla Walla at the Regional Airport, Terminal Building and this Wednesday Spokane will have a workshop at the Spokane Conservation District at 210 North Havana. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.
