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 Delaware Crop Field

 

Windbreaks…Help Has Arrived

Let’s face it; vegetative windbreaks are nothing new for the agricultural community.

As you drive through rural Delaware, you see many uses of windbreaks around buildings and fields.

The reason…windbreaks work, and more benefits from implementing the use of windbreaks are discovered all the time.

Specifically, windbreaks help improve air quality by alleviating agricultural air emissions, including greenhouse gases, dust, and ammonia.

Planting buffers also helps to remove excess nutrients from soil and runoff.

Windbreaks can lessen odors emanating from farms by minimizing air movement around chicken houses and manure sheds. They can also improve the visual look of the farm.

With all of its benefits, it can be a daunting task when planning, funding and implementing this conservation practice within an operation.

However, for Delmarva farmers, help has arrived.

Through a Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI) grant agreement, Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc. (DPI) has hired a full time Vegetative Environmental Buffers Coordinator.

The coordinator will help Delmarva farmers with windbreaks, also known as vegetative environmental buffers.

CCPI is a voluntary program offered by the NRCS to foster conservation partnerships that focus technical and financial resources on conservation priorities on a local level.

The partnership grant was awarded to DPI by the NRCS because of mutual interest in promoting voluntary conservation on poultry operations, and the need to increase the number of vegetative environmental buffers/ windbreaks throughout the Delmarva Peninsula.

DPI hired James D. Scott, Jr. as the new Vegetative Environmental Buffers Coordinator.

Mr. Scott will help farmers with windbreaks installation by coordinating efforts with NRCS offices and the Conservation Districts; identifying sources of plants, cost share dollars and planting contractors; and scheduling plantings on farms.

As always, the NRCS has financial and technical assistance available for the farmer for conservation planning and implementation through such programs as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

Thanks to a strong conservation partnership between Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., and the NRCS, using windbreaks on the farm has become even easier.

Through the partnership, farmers now have yet another valuable conservation planning resource available to them.

To learn more about DPI, and planning, and the benefits of windbreaks, contact Mr. Scott at the DPI office by calling 302-856-9037, or visit DPI on the web at www.dpichicken.org.

Also, to learn more about windbreaks and the NRCS, our programs, and natural resource conservation and planning, contact one of our USDA Service Centers: Sussex 302-856-3990, Kent 302-741-2600 or New Castle 302-832-3100. You can also visit us on the web at www.de.nrcs.usda.gov.
Delaware NRCS | Delaware NRCS

 


Last Modified:  09/25/2007 07:47:22 AM