Session will focus on maintaining quality of farms' soil

By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press

When the board members of the Pacific Northwest Farm Forum first met last year, they knew the Conservation Reserve Program would be a hot topic this year.

"We decided this was going to be an important seminar for us," said Jim Armstrong, immediate past chairman of the committee and communications and special project manager of the Spokane County Conservation District.

The district is offering a seminar about the program at 10:30 a.m., Thursday, Feb. 4. Northwest Farm Credit Services is sponsoring the event.

Washington Farm Service Agency executive director Judy Olson and Washington State Conservationist Roylene Rides at the Door are expected to speak.

Part of the seminar will examine federal programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, and the conservation program.

Armstrong said farmers will learn whether they are eligible for EQIP right away, instead of having to plow and then return to direct seeding to be eligible for the program after taking land out of CRP.

The district is working with the federal agencies to develop a pilot program to use other resources to help with the costs of taking land out of CRP and using direct seeding. That includes the district's mentor program, in which experienced direct-seeders work with newcomers to the farming method, Armstrong said.

"Hopefully, that will help them make the conversion from conventional tillage to direct seed," he said.

The seminar will also include the message of preserving the high quality of the soil that has been in CRP.

"That's the main emphasis in doing this," Armstrong said. "We want to make sure the plow is not considered a viable option."

The program is environmental, he said, designed to take highly erodible land out of production. The reason the land was considered highly erodible was because of the way it was farmed, he said.

"Conventional tillage caused tens of millions of tons of topsoil to erode over the last 100-plus years we've been farming out here," he said. "The technology has improved to the point that there doesn't ever need to be any soil or moisture leaving this ground."