LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan Dept. of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) has announced $6.5 million in grants for the state’s conservation districts.

The environmental stewardship division has awarded 95 grants in all for 57 of the state’s conservation districts for the next fiscal year to help implement voluntary conservation programs on private land. Conservation districts work to enhance and conserve soil, water, wildlife and other natural resources in their communities. The grants were distributed to five different state programs. One of those is the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP), which received 42 grants.

MAEAP is a voluntary state level program that’s been in existence since 2001. Its goal is to ‘verify’ best management practices by farmers by helping to guide them through different environmental stewardship regimens on their farms. If they successfully complete the steps, they can become verified and can have a sign indicating that at the front of their farm property.

“Technicians at the conservation districts work one on one with farmers to work towards MAEAP verification,” said Joe Kelpinski, MAEAP program manager at MDARD. “These technicians are really our boots on the ground.”

Conservation district technicians are essentially consultants for farmers seeking to obtain a MAEAP verification. Once a farmer is ready for a final inspection, he can have a staff member from MDARD come to the farm to see if the best management practices have been achieved or not, which will determine whether or not the farm receives the verification. As with almost everything else, the covid outbreak has affected the program.

“The MAEAP program continues to grow, even though this year was tough,” Kelpinski said. “We lost about three months in the first part of the year, but overall we continue to grow at about 10 percent a year.” Kelpinski said that since 2002 MDARD has verified about 3,500 farms, which translates into about 5,700 verifications altogether, includes reverifications. Farms must be re-verified every five years to maintain the status.

One farmer who has achieved verification through MAEAP is Jay Williams, who grows corn, soybeans, wheat and alfalfa on 1,350 acres in Hillsdale County in Southwest Michigan. He also raises beef cattle. He became verified in cropping systems in about 2010. One of the biggest changes he had to make was aligning his fertilizer applications and timing with his crop, to maximize nutrient uptake and minimize runoff.

“We try to be a leader in the stewardship of our land,” he said. “We wanted to tell our community that we were doing the right thing for our environment. We’ve had questions and positive comments about our MAEAP verifications. We’ve been blessed with really great conservation district staff over the years.”

One of the MAEAP technicians in Hillsdale County is Cody Birdsell. He said since MAEAP is a voluntary program, most of the farmers he deals with are people who want to be a part of it. “There’s some farmers that don’t want to be a part of MAEAP because they don’t like the government, but there are others that want the sign out in their front yard and do want to be a part of it. Those people want to take care of their land and have sustainable practices for future generations,” he said.

The conservation districts won 42 grants for the MAEAP program, but were also awarded grants for several other, similar programs. They received 24 grants for the Conservation Technical Assistance Initiative (CTAI). CTAI provides Michigan farmers and landowners with conservation planning and engineering assistance, allowing them easier access to federal cost-share dollars for implementing conservation practices. Six grants were also awarded for the Produce Safety Program, which is a joint effort between conservation districts, U.S. FDA, MDARD and Michigan State University Extension.

The Forestry Assistance Program received 19 grants. This program provides private forestland owners expert help from conservation district forestry experts with the goal of promoting sustainable management of the private forest resource. The last program to receive grants is the Phosphorus Initiative. It’s an undertaking between MDARD and the USDA to accelerate and enhance the implementation of conservation practices aimed to reduce phosphorus and sediment in Michigan. The program received four grants; these will enable four conservation district technicians to provide technical help to farmers and landowners.