The Past, Present, and Future of Agricultural Conservation in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed
The agricultural sector has made tremendous progress since 2010 in implementing the practices necessary to meet regional clean water goals outlined through the Chesapeake Bay TMDL and each watershed jurisdiction’s associated Watershed Implementation Plans. In this session, we’ll take stock of what we’ve accomplished, highlight opportunities for continued near-term progress towards these established goals, and learn about how implementation progress is translating into measurable improvements for local rivers and streams.
Speakers: Kate Bresaw, Elizabeth Hoffman, James Martin, Lee McDonnell, Jen Nelson, Greg Noe, Jake Reilly, Bob Waring and James Weber
Adapting to New Realities
Ongoing trends in the public funding landscape, coupled with the broader near-term outlook for agriculture, require that agricultural conservation partners across the region be prepared to adjust and adapt in order to effectively sustain progress and momentum moving forward. History can offer some lessons on how conservation partners have adapted to earlier ebbs and flows in public conservation funding and impacts of the larger agricultural economy on conservation, while an eye towards the foreseeable future will ensure partners are best equipped to meet the current moment.
Speakers: Dave Abler, Dana Ensor
Collaborative Models for Agricultural Conservation
Around 2018, NFWF made intentional shifts in our programs, most notably the INSR program, to more intentionally fund collaborative models to accelerate BMP implementation and water quality improvement. NFWF and grantees have learned a lot from these experiences, and a recently-completed independent evaluation of this shift is yielding important insights to continue accelerating the development and application of collaborative models for a variety of outcomes (water quality, species/habitats, climate/resilience, farm productivity, etc.). NFWF fully intends to continue and expand upon this intentional focus on collaborative models for conservation. We hope this session will improve collective understanding of where and how these models can best be applied and provide an opportunity to hear how NFWF intends to sustain and expand it's focus on collaborative conservation models.
Speakers: Amber Ellis, Sharon Farrell, Amy Mickel, Mary Sketch Bryant, Kate Wofford
Farmer-Led Conservation Initiatives
Conservation partners continue to deepen their efforts to engage and empower farmers as collaborators in the design and execution of local and regional agricultural conservation initiatives, while farmer-led organizations continue to expand their roles and capacities as critical conservation delivery partners. These farmer-led models offer important advantages in accelerating implementation progress, including enhanced connectivity and trust among producers, better peer-to-peer networking and learning among producers, and the co-development and testing of new conservation innovations.
Speakers : Andy Flinchbaugh, Jen Nelson, Dani Heisler, Jenell McHenry, Lydia Taylor, Dwight Stolzfoos
Field Tours
Field tours will take us outdoors to highlight how partners across Pennsylvania are aligning around tangible restoration outcomes and leveraging cross-sector collaboration to accelerate watershed recovery. Through on-the-ground examples, the tours will demonstrate how farmers, local organizations, and conservation practitioners are transforming small watersheds into models of restoration and resilience. Each stop will emphasize the strategies partners have found most effective in driving, sustaining, or measuring progress. These strategies could include focused outreach, applied implementation science, and continued monitoring.
Together, these examples show that when local leadership, technical expertise, and coordinated funding converge around a shared vision, lasting water quality improvements are within reach. A dedicated team of organizers worked to develop programming that emphasizes soil health, nutrient management, and small watershed planning at each site:
King Farm : Lisa Blazure, Alex Cooper, Lamonte Garber, Jeb Musser, and Chris Sigmond
SEAREC Farm: Katie Bartling, Allyson Gibson, Jim Hershey, Adrienne Hobbins, Andrew Lefever, Heidi Reed, and Eric Rosenbaum
Zell Farm: Ann Basehore, Matt Ehrhart, Dave Hartman, Matt Royer, and Jeremy Weaver
Novel Technical Assistance Solutions
Partners engaged in agricultural conservation regionally continue to stress the need for increased technical assistance capacity, enhanced efficiency of the technical assistance system, and improved technical assistance workforce education, training, and retention. Despite the systemic and longstanding nature of many of these challenges, many partners continue to develop, test, and scale novel solutions focused on key pieces of the technical assistance delivery systems.
Speakers: Jenn Fetter, Amy Johnson, Jen Nelson, Eric Rosenbaum
Data, Decision Support Tools, and Technology
Better use of data, decision-making tools, and information technologies has the potential to transform the efficiency, scale, and impact of agricultural conservation efforts across the Bay watershed. At the same time, there remain obstacles limiting the best use of existing technological resources and tools to guide conservation work, opportunities to better connect and integrate those assets moving forward, and unmet needs for new tools and resources that could unlock greater efficiency, scale, and impact of our collective efforts.
Speakers: John Dawes, Carly Dean, Olivia Devereaux, James Martin
"The Road Ahead": Planning for Future Collaboration
Armed with improved knowledge, networks, and partners gained throughout the forum, participants will end the forum with self-guided reflection on what actions can be taken individually, organizationally, and collaboratively to accelerate local and regional agricultural conservation progress
Speakers: Dianne Russell, Jake Reilly