Improving Technical Assistance for Farmers

A REPORT OF THE CHESAPEAKE BAY COMMISSION NOVEMBER 2017

A Red Flag for the Chesapeake Bay Clean-Up

Farmers have been — and will continue to be — critical to the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and the thousands of miles of local streams and rivers that provide the Bay’s life-blood of clean water. Since the beginning of the restoration effort, farmers working with agricultural conservation professionals have planted cover crops, practiced no-till crop management, established and maintained streamside buffers, and performed a litany of other conservation measures at an unprecedented scale. Their work is now paying the dividend of cleaner water.

But in spite of its considerable efforts to date, the agricultural community needs to do more if we are to restore local and Bay water quality. And we must assist farmers by making tools available to them to help them do the job.

For years, conversations among the Chesapeake Bay Commission members, state and federal agricultural agency staff, and — most importantly — farmers have included a steady drumbeat about the importance, yet insufficient availability, of agricultural technical assistance.

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