Living in the shadow of Washington, D.C., and in the heart of an urban state might sound like a nightmare to many farmers because all eyes are on you. For Jennie Schmidt, who farms in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in Maryland, she’s striking the balance of appeasing criticizing eyes while still optimizing crop performance.
The farm is highly diversified. Today they grow corn, soybeans, high oleic soybeans, food grade soybeans, Roma tomatoes, green beans and wine grapes. Food from her family farm can be found in canneries, fresh markets, poultry feed, restaurants and, of course, bottles of wine.
A registered dietician, Schmidt didn’t grow up on the farm and only started working on the family operation full time several years ago. Her husband works full time off-farm, so she works with her brother-in-law on a farm that her late father-in-law cultivated and started on the road to conservation.
“Back in the ’60s he started using no-till and working with cover crops,” Schmidt explains. “However, it’s really come to the forefront in the past 20 years.”
One reason the farm family started pushing conservation harder than before is because, well, it wasn’t a choice. Maryland started requiring nutrient management plans to regulate what’s applied to crops, and therefore, at risk of damaging the bay in 1998. At the same time, the state started creating strong incentives for conservation programs such as cover crops.
“Maryland has about 1.5 million acres of crops, and each year about half a million are planted to cover crops,” she says.
Good offense
Schmidt recently experienced a harrowing affair — she was driving a sprayer when a neighbor pulled into a field and had her get out of the machine, only to yell at her and tell her she was destroying the environment. Stunned, the Schmidt didn’t know how to respond, it’s not every day you’re attacked for making a living.
“We live in an anti-agriculture area,” Schmidt says. “We get flipped off and honked at when we’re driving equipment on roads. We’re surrounded by urban consumers who are so utterly disconnected with agriculture. About 75% of the battle is simply educating people.
“It’s like we have to constantly defend our practices and prove that what we’re doing is beneficial for the environment and not harmful to the bay.”
With no-till, cover crops and precision fertilizer placement as defenses, Schmidt has a good start to conversations with consumers. Explaining the benefits to the environment of those practices can be challenging, but they’re evident and proven, giving her a good offense when activist and concerned citizens voice opinions.
“About 80% of farms in Maryland are no-till and we have a high adoption of cover crops,” she says. “The number one pollutant in the Chesapeake Bay used to be sediment, which comes from disturbed topsoil — not just construction and roadways. So, with that high adoption we’ve made strides to decrease pollution.”
Farmers also can’t apply fertilizer in the fall, period. This practice decreases leaching and runoff during winter months, which, with nitrogen, decreases hypoxia issues that used to plague the bay. Note, hypoxia issues aren’t isolated to the east coast, runoff from areas along the Mississippi River are contributing to a large hypoxia zone in the Gulf of Mexico.
Next steps
To further defend her farm practices, improve overall production and protect soils, Schmidt is a constant learner. She and her brother-in-law are ready to make tweaks and changes every year if needed to improve their operation.
“Planting green would be what I consider our next step,” Schmidt says. “We’ve tried it with varying success, so we keep repeating and tweaking the process to try and get it to be a viable practice across many of our acres.”
They’re looking at crop types, mixes and how the mix or cover crop they chose interacts with nutrients and biology in the soil. What adds confusion to the mix is every year is different and Mother Nature can throw wrenches in even the best laid plans.
She seeks information about how to plant green, and other new practices, from neighbors and farmers she trusts. Neighbors especially often have good knowledge of the area and can provide more specific advice she can apply to their fields.
For farmers in Maryland, conservation isn’t always a choice — it’s required. However, with the right attitude and experimenting, they can make conservation pay.
