Delaware River Restoration Fund
The North Jersey RC&D Agricultural Specialist will work in the region to promote and implement additional agricultural BMPs to farmers in the region that may not have traditional applied for Farm Bill support nor have been able to rank the resource concern high enough for the federal cost-share dollars available in a year. The program will afford the RC&D staff to work with area producers and take them from the cradle, initial processing and paperwork involved with the cost-share process, to implementation all the way to the grave of agricultural BMPs thereby ensuring resource concern solutions and improved regional water quality over the next 5 years.
The Agricultural Specialist will launch a targeted outreach campaign, hosting direct farmer/grower meetings and on-farm field sessions to highlight benefits to farmer and water quality that the practices could have. RC&D will work with the producer and follow them through the entire USDA-NRCS Farm Bill process and will ensure implementation and proper follow-up with the producer. RC&D will work to train partners to better recognize and identify areas on farms that are causing water quality degradation and how best to address the problem. Additionally farmers in the region will be more satisfied with the improved customer service they receive they will be more inclined to spread the word, thereby increasing opportunities to get more direct conservation on the ground.
