Resources

Audience: Farmers

The Conservation Stewardship Program helps you build on your existing conservation efforts while strengthening your operation. 
The Clean Lakes, Estuaries, And Rivers initiative offers 30-year contracts through its CLEAR30 pilot. FSA introduced this pilot in 2020, originally focused on 12 states in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay watershed. CLEAR30 is now available nationwide.
As USDA’s premiere water quality initiative, National Water Quality Initiative provides a way to accelerate voluntary, on-farm conservation investments and focused water quality monitoring and assessment resources where they can deliver the greatest benefits for clean water.
Protecting soil and water resources or addressing issues such as soil erosion, fertilizer and manure management, or improving water quality can be a daunting task. State and federal agencies have many knowledgeable people and financial and technical assistance programs available to help private landowners address their concerns and meet soil and water goals.
A bioreactor is a buried trench on the edge of a farm field that is traditionally filled with woodchips. Agricultural drainage tiles outlet into the woodchips where bacteria convert tile water nitrate-nitrogen into nitrogen gas.
Farmers are stewards of the land, and in Iowa's Boone River watershed, they're working with The Nature Conservancy to improve water quality and wildlife habitat, while maintaining productive yields.
Farmers are taking a collaborative, comprehensive approach to improving water quality by adopting research-based conservation practices that best fit their farms.
The Conservation Districts of Iowa started the Saving Tomorrow's Agriculture Resources project to keep farmers up to date on their own conservation status and needs. This program evaluates land to help manage soil and nutrient requirements.
The Agricultural Conservation Planning Framework is a free resource to address conservation needs. Made to help local farming communities, leveraging this is high-resolution, geo-spatial system can help improve soil and water conservation efforts.
Find out more about Conservation Reserve Enhancement Programs in your area.