Defenders Magazine

On the Ground: Farming to Save the Chesapeake Bay

By Thom Parks

© Garykramer.net

A flock of pintails takes to the air at Blackwater
National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland's
Chesapeake Bay region. The area is highly
polluted, but changes in farming practices can
help protect the region's wildlife.

The best way to see Barnstable Hill Farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore in late September is from the cab of a pickup truck. Walking is possible, but come autumn the four-foot-tall grasses make hoofing it a struggle.

As we pull up to a field, Neb Gerber points out the plants stretching to the horizon. Instead of rows of corn or soybeans, the field is filled with native grasses—little bluestem, big bluestem and Indian grass. "It's great wildlife habitat," says Gerber. Here bluebirds, yellow-breasted chats and ground-nesting birds such as bobwhite quails have reclaimed the spot where food crops once grew. Off to the left, a small restored marsh attracts northern pintails, southern leopard frogs and dragonflies.

Gerber is the chief wildlife habitat ecologist with Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage (CWH), a nonprofit group dedicated to restoring and protecting wildlife habitat while promoting sustainable agriculture. After acquiring the farm in 2000, the group transformed much of these 550 acres near Chesapeake Bay into prime wildlife habitat—only about 125 acres are still devoted to growing corn and soybeans—using federal Farm Bill funding, such as the Wetlands Reserve Program, the Conservation Security Program and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program. CWH—along with Defenders of Wildlife—now uses Barnstable Hill's successes to demonstrate to other area landowners how these federal incentive programs can work for them. To date, the group has restored nearly 1,500 acres of wetlands, created more than 3,000 acres of grass meadows and planted 712 acres of woodlands.

Federal subsidies to farmers are nothing new. Since the Great Depression, Farm Bill programs have worked to stabilize prices and keep farmers in business. But in recent decades, new legislation has specifically encouraged the conservation of water, soil and wildlife on working land. Defenders of Wildlife's Living Lands Program, which encourages local land trusts to protect native habitat, aims to further enhance these goals by encouraging Congress to ensure the 2007 Farm Bill's programs continue to devote funding to habitat conservation.

This is particularly important when it comes to the 64,000-square-acre Chesapeake Bay. According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the principal culprits behind the bay's poor water quality and loss of habitat are nitrogen and phosphorous from poorly managed agricultural practices. These nutrients feed algae, cloud the water and rob it of oxygen. At risk are the more than 3,000 migratory and resident wildlife species—including the bald eagle and peregrine falcon—that depend on the nation's largest estuary for food and nursery areas.

Gerber's goal is to figure out how to keep these pollutants out of the Chesapeake one small farm at a time. One solution is to use Farm Bill funding to create buffer zones around traditionally farmed fields, which catch and filter pollutants before they gush into streams on their way to the bay. But because landowners are always looking at their bottom line, CWH further stresses that restoring wetlands improves more than wildlife habitat and water quality. It can boost farmers' profits as well. "They may think growing corn is profitable," says Gerber, "but once farmers see that they can double their earnings by turning the land into wildlife habitat to control pollution, it's not too hard to convince them to make some changes."

Gerber pulls out of the field and hops onto a dirt road where migrating butterflies flutter past the truck. "This area is just thick with monarchs," he says. Along the trail's edge tickseed sunflower blooms with its daisylike petals. It's a favorite of a variety of pollinators such as long- and short-tongued bees. Birds—purple finches, bobwhites and swamp sparrows—also enjoy the vibrant flower's seeds, while caterpillars feed on their foliage and stems.

Two miles down the road, Gerber points out CWH's latest project: another farmer's 45-acre field of fertilized corn. Every time it rains, water rushes down the field and into a small drainage pipe that runs beneath the road and gushes into a creek on its way to Chesapeake Bay. Carried with it: a heavy load of fertilizer.

With the landowner's approval, CWH is planning to create a 10-acre wooded area with a shallow pond. In the future, when a rainstorm passes through, the runoff will rush across the field and run into a strip of small trees that will slow erosion and help to suck up the fertilizer. The water will then drain into the pond, which will wring out even more of the nitrogen and phosphorous. By the time the water reaches the creek, it will be carrying less pollutants on its way into the Chesapeake.

Stemming the flow of fertilizer from one farmer's field may not seem like it can make much of an impact on a body of water as large as the Chesapeake. But as more farmers sign on, the positive results add up. What took centuries to pave, plow and pollute can also be restored with time and commitment, says Gerber. CWH's efforts may have subtracted only a small amount from the millions of pounds of pollutants that regularly pour into the bay, but it's a start.