One and half million dollars in agriculture conservation research funding announced Friday will supplement Lancaster County’s efforts to better contain nutrient runoff from farms, improving local water quality.
“We know we have to keep investing,” state Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding said at a press conference held at the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale in Chester County.
The $1.5 million for conservation research will be in addition to the department’s annual research budget, bringing the state’s total to approximately $3.7 million, Redding said.
“This is about investing in good practices and ideas,” Redding said, adding that he anticipates Lancaster County farmers will both participate in research projects directly and also benefit from the innovations such research projects discover.
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High-priority topics for the research projects include manure management, said Michael Roth, director of conservation and innovation for the state Conservation Commission, a partnership between the state departments of agriculture and environmental protection.
Manure management technology can be expensive for small farmers to acquire, and Roth said Lancaster County farmers could benefit from research into products like micro digesters, designed for use on small farms, or from efforts to pool resources and offer technology like digesters to farmers in a specific region.
The $1.5 million for conservation research could be just the first step in growing the state’s investment in agriculture innovation, if a proposed $10 million Innovation Fund survives budget talks.
Redding said he’s optimistic the proposed $10 million Innovation Fund will ultimately win approval.
Both the announced conservation research fund and the proposed Innovation Fund seek to make the state’s agriculture industry more resilient in the face of climate change. Redding said that topic can generate pushback, but that it’s important to face head on.
“Agriculture has a really intimate relationship with climate,” Redding said.
Despite the polarized nature of the national narrative, the state’s agriculture businesses must acknowledge that climate resiliency is a key part of safeguarding the food supply and farmers’ livelihoods, Redding said.
“Agriculture should own that conservation,” Redding said.
