Agriculture Secretary Vilsack, Governor O

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                     
 
CONTACT:
 
Terry Noto, (585) 455-7671, tnoto@rochester.rr
Suzy Friedman, (202) 492-1023, sfriedman@edf.org

(Westminster, MD - April 24, 2009) Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley today signed an agreement to stimulate participation in Maryland’s Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). This program provides financial rewards to farmers who volunteer to help improve water quality and enhance wildlife habitat by converting sensitive cropland and marginal pastureland to buffers along streams and wetlands. These buffers and wetlands filter nutrients out of runoff from farm fields and provide important habitat for wildlife, such as bog turtles and other highly endangered wetland species.
 
 “Today’s signing should provide an important boost to the efforts of Maryland and USDA to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay and restore wildlife habitat,” said Terry Noto, a CREP and wetlands expert with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).  “It streamlines CREP by putting an emphasis on the most effective ways to improve water quality — installing narrower buffers of land closest to streams and restoring wetlands — and by providing farmers with clearer, more straight forward practice requirements and more attractive incentives.”
 
When USDA and the state of Maryland launched this program in October, 1997, it was the first program of its kind in the nation. The innovative program committed millions of dollars of state and federal funding and created a collaboration of state and federal agencies, local soil and water conservation districts, conservation and farm organizations and farmers to restore up to 100,000 acres of critical streamside buffers, wetlands and wildlife habitat.  Since that time, farmers have enrolled nearly 75,000 acres in the program. Renewing the program now is especially critical because some of these critical lands are enrolled under contracts that will expire soon.
 
 “USDA and Maryland set an example for the nation when they first launched the Maryland CREP in 1997. Today, they are setting an important example again not only by working together to streamline and improve this program so it is more attractive to farmers to participate, but also by providing farmers with an opportunity to re-enroll lands in CREP when the original contracts expire, which has not been done before,” noted Suzy Friedman, regional director for the Chesapeake Bay for EDF.
 
The CREP applies to cropland and marginal pastureland throughout Maryland. Further information on how to enroll is available at:
 
Maryland Farm Service Agency
Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Maryland Department of Agriculture
Environmental Defense Fund

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