Walla Walla County farmer gets CRP 25th Anniversary Award
Washington Ag Today April 25, 2011 To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Conservation Reserve Program the Washington State Farm Service Agency Office gave an award on Earth Day to Walla Walla County farmer Jeff Schulke, recognizing him as one of the agricultural producers that have made CRP successful. The Schulke operation is a fifth generation family farm of three-thousand plus acres which has Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or CREP contracts. Those contracts are for buffers Schulke has put in along an endangered steelhead bearing stream and its tributary where there used to be cattle or cropland that was farmed right to the edge of the streams. Now there are native grasses and trees on buffers that average from 75 to 300 feet totaling 265 acres. Jeff Schulke says the economics of losing cropland to buffers was the major obstacle to overcome. CREP does pay a better rent than regular CRP and Schulke says using buffers to straighten out fields along meandering streams provided some benefits. Schulke: “Made those fields a little more efficient, a lot less overlap on fertilizers and chemicals.” Schulke liked how everyone was on board in the CREP program from the USDA, to state agencies down to the local conservation district and his message is this; Schulke: “If everybody worked together to achieve a common goal, and not try to point fingers, then a lot more can happen over a short period time than with just more regulation.” I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net. ?
