Conservation Effects Assessment Project

Conservation Effects Assessment Project. I'm Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.

Nearly 1500 farmers and ranchers across the three Pacific Northwest states will be contacted as part of a national survey of conservation practices. NASS Northwest Regional Director Chris Mertz explains the Conservation Effects Assessment Project or CEAP.

MERTZ: This project which is in partnership with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, NRCS, they fund this project. It's a multi-year project and the last time we conducted this was approximately 10 years ago so it's time to update some of the information. This is where we're going to focus on conservation practices that producers are involved in, what they are adopting. Talking about their production practices, their cropping histories, fertilizer and pesticide applications.

He says there will be two points of contact.

MERTZ: Our initial project is going to be screening, making sure we're talking to the farm operators and that's going to begin once we're done with our training next week and then we will go out later to ask the detailed questions the farm operator. And what NRCS does, looks at that information, can access the soils, the quality of our land and also look at the adoption of practices that farmers are participating in.

The projects helps measure the environmental benefits associated with implementation and installation of conservation practices on cultivated and non-cultivated agricultural lands

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.