Take a look! New PCWL project photos have been posted!
Productive Conservation partners are busy with Market Development and Field Demonstration Studies
PCWL Crop Establishment Funds are Available! PCWL can help you make conservation profitable on your farm!
PCWL is a demonstration program that provides incentives to reduce the economic, environmental, and social risks to the farmers growing new alternative conservation crops for energy and emerging industry.
Your local Resource Conservation & Development Council (RC&D), along with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, are working to develop and deliver an alternative agricultural program to landowners and/or farmers who would like to be involved in an innovative program that provides sustainable economic opportunities and needed farm diversity while also offering environmental benefits to Minnesota without the idling of lands.
This project was developed because interest has been high with small farmers across Minnesota wanting to grow new crops for conservation and renewable energy. With the help of a Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG), we have 1,000 acres to measure results of the Productive Conservation on Working Lands project. It is our goal to secure matching funds from the state to expand the scope of this project.
If producers have a desire to grow a new crop or are already growing a new crop,
and need help with crop establishment, marketing, or research, this program could
be for you. Producers interested in participating in an innovative project such as
PCWL would be eligible for crop establishment payments, in addition to benefiting
from PCWL Market Development and Field Demonstration studies.
Producers are being provided with an incentive of up to $150 per acre for producers who are establishing approved PCWL crops. Crops currently funded include Native grasses for biomass or seed, hybrid poplar, hybrid hazelnuts, native berry bushes, willows for biomass, and native flowers for seed.
MarketingThree Rivers RC&D with the PCWL Technical Committee will work with partners to develop new and emerging markets with value added opportunities for PCWL crops. One of these studies will develop resources for Minnesota farmers to tap into the emerging ecological services payment markets such as carbon credit, phosphorus reduction and wetland banking payments
Field StudiesWe are working with partners to conduct 3 on-farm studies in order to provide agronomic information to producers regarding the growing and production of PCWL crops. These studies will investigate fertilization rates for biomass production with native grasses and hybrid hazelnut propagation. There will also be a study of biomass yield and suitability for use as a gasification feedstock. This information will be included in the PCWL Technical Handbook to be published in late 2009.
Environmental BenefitsThe economic, environmental, and social benefits to Minnesota will be documented. A technical handbook will be created in order to show results to the State of Minnesota and beyond. We will also work to secure state and federal funding for adoption of a larger scale program.
Across much of Minnesota the landscape is dominated by an agricultural system dependant on two major crops – corn and soybeans. This limited focus on two crops has had profound effects on the social, economic, and natural environment of rural Minnesota.
The rural farm economy is heavily dependent on the volatile commodities market. That market volatility contributes to long-term economic dependence on government crop subsidies, which have come under increasing scrutiny from urban media and lawmakers. While farm commodity markets have repeatedly set record high prices during the course of this program, we recognize the cyclical nature of farm markets. We hope to prepare participants in PCWL for the eventual down turn in traditional commodity markets by diversifying their production with productive conservation crops. The intensive production of these commodities has contributed to most stretches of streams and rivers in southern Minnesota being considered “impaired” by at least one pollutant.
It is in this context that we begin to look for solutions to the economic and environmental problems plaguing the rural regions of Minnesota. While land idling conservation programs such as Conservation Reserve Program have become the gold standard for conservation, they take land out of production that could be utilized to produce food, fiber and fuel in an environmentally sound manner. As a result there is a push to move conservation programs toward a “working lands conservation” ethic. The thought being that through the promotion of conservation on working lands, we can achieve the desired resource conservation goals while giving the landowner the ability to profit from their conservation lands. This also serves to diversify crop production in the state, making the rural economy less susceptible to the whims of a fickle commodities market.
For more information please contact:
Joe Domeier
Program Manager, Three Rivers RC&D
1160 South Victory Drive
Mankato, Minnesota 56001
507-345-7418
jadomeier@threeriversrcd.org
