The Natural Resources Conservation Service announced Thursday it would award $1.1 million, in the form of a federal grant, to Dane County farmers. The money will go toward reducing harmful nutrients and sediment runoff into Lake Mendota.
According to its website, the NRCS is a United States Department of Agriculture program that helps private landowners preserve natural resources and combat climate change.
The Dane County Land and Water Resources Department applied to the USDA’s Upper Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative for special funding to update environmentally damaging farming methods, according to an NRCS press release.
The new initiative is part of an ongoing plan that seeks to improve water and wildlife conditions in the Mississippi River Basin, which spans 13 states, and the NRCS considers Madison watersheds a “focus area,” according to its website.
Dane County has received $2.6 million total over the past four years from the NRCS, which has collaborated on the project to help farmers adjust their practices in an effort to limit the impact of harmful nutrients on local ecosystems.
“The Upper Mississippi Healthy Watershed project is helping farmers voluntarily implement conservation and management practices that reduce nutrient runoff from agricultural land,” Adam Dowling, district conservationist for NRCS in Dane County, said in the press release.
The USDA’s Environmental Quality Incentives Plan made the funds available for farmers willing to participate in land conservation efforts by installing infrastructure that prevents soil erosion, according to the press release.
Farmers in the Pheasant Branch, Waunakee Marsh, and Sixmile Creek watersheds must apply to the Dane County LWRD by March 15 to receive funding to update their agricultural practices.
