MORGANTOWN – USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Chief Terry Cosby came to town on Tuesday to visit an urban farm and a climate monitoring site. He was joined by local and state members of the NRCS and other USDA agencies.
“I just wanted to get out and see some of the things that are happening here,” he told The Dominion Post between site stops. West Virginia NRCS staff and state agencies have figured out how to overcome challenges and work with producers. “This is exciting what I’m seeing here today.”
The morning started at Mountain Harvest Farm on Goshen Road, recipient of the 2023 West Virginia Conservation Farm of the Year award. Co-owners Mary Oldham and Chico Ramirez talked about the history of the farm and what they do.
They started by renting a quarter acre of Owl Creek Farm in 2012, Oldham said. In 2013, they got involved in a Community Supported Agriculture program, where subscribers invest money in the farm and receive return in the form of boxed produce. They also sell at the Morgantown farmer’s market.
“Those are still our two main market focuses,” she said. Two recent developments have helped move their farm forward. The Owl Creek Farm owner was able to obtain a conservation easement with West Virginia Land Trust, ensuring the land remains farmland forever. And following that, last spring they bought 60 of the 80 acres. “We’re very excited about that.”
With their cultivation of 30-40 vegetable crops and raising chickens for meat and eggs, they use about 12 acres now, Ramirez said, but aim to expand.
They employ a variety of conservation best management practices, such as crop rotation, cover crops, contour and no-till farming, buffer strips and pollinator planting.
And they recently signed a five-year contract for NRCS’s Conservation Stewardship Program, which rewards farmers with a $4,000 minimum payment (raised from $1,500 following passage of what was called the Inflation Reduction Act) for implementing conservation practices.
They’ll begin using it, they said, for pollinator planting on the farm’s back acreage and tree planting for a barrier along the property’s edge.
Cosby pointed out that only 18 states had CSP programs before the IRA, now it’s expanded to all 50. “The bottom line is you’ve got to figure out how to make communities thrive and how to make people’s lives better, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
With the CSP, he told The Dominion Post, “We’re able to pay producers for the great work they’re doing. … It is a payment of doing the right thing.”
Jon Bourdon, NRCS state conservationist, said of Cosby’s visit, “This is just an opportunity for us to show him what we’re doing in West Virginia.” Mountain Harvest Farm is a prime example of community scale farming – growing enough produce to impact your community.
From the farm, the entourage moved to a wooded site off Gladesville Road where NRCS soil scientists and USDA Farm Service Agency scientists explained their climate monitoring collaboration.
Chelsea Cook, FSA Monroe County executive director, displayed the tiny ambient weather monitoring station she dreamed up, and presented to John Perdue, FSA state executive director, who brought it to reality with Brian Nester, NRCS assistant state soil scientist.
The weather station, Cook said, can monitor temperature, precipitation, humidity, dew point pressure and wind direction and speed. It transmits data via WiFi every five minutes. The are 140 placed across the state, with 30 more to come via an agreement with WVU Extension. Its data can be downloaded and stored and help farmers with such things as proving a weather event affected their crops or livestock.
The wooded site was dotted with pits and with pipes indicating the placement of soil moisture monitors. Fifty sites have been selected across the state for soil data collection and this was one of 15 installed so far, Nester said.
Soil data, he said, can help with such things as assisting engineers in placement and planning of agriculture facilities and structures, and informing producers on areas good for pasture and what plant types are best suited for the particular ground.
Perdue said, “It’s all about partnerships” between federal, state and county governments and agencies. The combined air and soil data can help farmers on all types and sizes of farms. The governor recently used some of the data to declare a drought state of emergency.
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
