LANSING, Mich. – Two technicians have been recognized for their work verifying farms for the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP).

The awards were given out the annual Michigan Association of Conservation Districts Fall Convention held Dec. 8 in Bellaire, Mich. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) recognized Samantha Wolfe, of the Grand Traverse Conservation District, and Justin Brown, of the Mason-Lake Conservation District, for their exemplary service to landowners, for going above and beyond the duties of a technician and for achieving the most MAEAP verifications.

“Samantha and Justin’s commitment to assisting our farmers and forest owners in reducing nutrient loss from their land and implementing conservation practices are fundamental to the legacy of good stewardship in Michigan,” said MDARD Director Gary McDowell. “The success of MAEAP is rooted in partnership. It’s through collaboration with state agencies, conservation districts, stakeholders, and of course our farming community, that we continue to implement positive change for long-term sustainable agriculture practices.”

The MAEAP is a voluntary program that encourages farmers and forest land owners to do best practices in farm and forest land management, and which must be verified by technicians such as Wolfe and Brown in order to be certified as compliant with the MAEAP standards.

Wolfe expressed some surprise at the attention she was getting for the work she does, which is usually behind the scenes, but said that the convention was “really great. I had not been to that convention before last year and then it was virtual. It was a really nice gathering of maybe a couple hundred people. It feels good what we’re doing, because we know that we’re playing a conservation role in our community.”

Wolfe said the funding for her job comes from MDARD, even though she works within the conservation district system, which is a structure created by the USDA in the 1930s in response to problems such as the Dustbowl. “I got a cool little ‘raindrop’ shaped plaque; I’ve never been recognized like that before, so it was really different,” she said.

Wolfe also works on an incubator farm program in the Grand Traverse area, where the idea is to help new and beginning farmers. She’s also involved in a pesticide and chemical container recycling program, as well as a tire drop-off program. Some of these events are done in coordination with a local high school. These drop-off events are really “feel good” things, she said.

Fellow recipient Justin Brown described the conference as a “good conference. I was delighted to receive the award. They gave me a plaque to recognize all the work that we’ve done throughout the year. There were quite a few people at the conference who reached out to me about it and acknowledged it.”

Brown said he works with farmers trying to achieve MAEAP verification in an ongoing way, rather than just showing up one day to see if the farmer is in compliance or not.

Although Brown has never been a farmer, he said his grandfather started an orchard many years ago in Manistee County where Brown grew up. Currently, his uncle and cousin operate the orchard. “Although I didn’t work real closely on the farm, I was always around it growing up,” Brown said.