Green Horizons

Efforts by Missouri woodland owner groups, RC&Ds, and natural resource professionals over the past few years have resulted in a dramatic increase in NRCS EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program) funding for family forest landowners in the state.

For new GH readers, EQIP is authorized in the Farm Bill to provide a voluntary conservation program for farmers, ranchers and forest landowners promoting agricultural production and environmental quality. The program offers financial and technical help to assist eligible participants install or implement structural and management practices on eligible land.

While both the 2002 and 2008 reauthorizations of the Farm Bill require 60 percent of EQIP funds be targeted to animal waste application, the remaining dollars can fund what is called general EQIP applications. This is where forest management practices like forest stand improvement (FSI) fall.

However, very few contracts with FSI were being awarded, even in the heavily forested Missouri Ozarks where the primary agricultural land use is forestry. Private forest landowner groups like the Eastern Ozarks Forestry Council wondered why this was so and proposed to tackle the problem by working with NRCS personnel to develop a practice that would encourage landowners to inventory their forest resources and develop a plan. These efforts resulted in the adoption of the NRCS Prescribed Forestry conservation practice standard (practice code 409).

Soon other groups like the Top of the Ozarks RC&D, the Missouri Consulting Foresters Association, the Missouri Department of Conservation and the MU Forestry faculty began regularly attending the Missouri NRCS Technical Advisory Committee meetings to encourage that this practice as well as other NRCS-approved forestry practices be ranked higher on EQIP applications in counties associated with significant forest land acres.

EQIP 409 Prescribed Forestry contracts for FY08, which ended Sept. 30, 2008. The top number in each county represents the number of landowners and the bottom figure is the total acreage.

One outgrowth of this increased emphasis on forestry is the administering of approved Missouri EQIP 409 contracts by the Top of the Ozarks RC&D, in partnership with MDC and USDA-NRCS. The state was divided into six regions based upon geography and number of contracts. Bids were solicited from foresters that are TSP (Technical Service Providers, as certified by NRCS) and/or certified foresters (as certified by the Society of American Foresters), located in Missouri and surrounding states.

“Each forester or firm could bid on one, all, or any combination of the bid packets,” explains Richard Stricklin, Top of the Ozarks RC&D Forestry & Wildlife Committee Chair. The bids were awarded on a lowest cost basis.

The results will be impressive: 118 landowners, with forests ranging in size from 5 to 643 acres will have a forest stewardship plan in place by August 2009. Total area impacted for Missouri will be more than 10,000 acres.

Stricklin says this project “is a perfect example of government and local people working together to manage our resources wisely and effectively.”

But, the work is far from over. Less than 10 percent of Missouri’s 12 million acres of family-owned forestland have a forest stewardship plan in place to guide landowners. If you are among the other 90 percent, consider calling your local NRCS or Missouri Department of Conservation office to learn more about the EQIP program and other incentive programs available to help you help the land.