Helping Stabilize Agricultural Land in Southeastern Colorado
By Petra Popiel, Natural Resource Conservation Service, Colorado
Producers Vance Alfrey and Becki Schroder in field of cover crops planted following wheat harvest. Vance and Becki farm together with Becki’s husband and two sons, Derek and Jeb. Photo by Joseph Mort, NRCS
Baca and surrounding counties in Southeastern Colorado have very highly erodible land. Past drought conditions and high winds have caused agricultural producers in that area to struggle to keep their soils intact. Thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, these producers are receiving technical and financial assistance as they implement climate-smart conservation practices that help stabilize their wind-stricken lands.
“Landowners are tired of their land blowing away,” said James Brenner, Natural Resources Conservation Service resource team lead and district conservationist in Springfield, Colo. “Inflation Reduction Act funding [has enabled] them [to] install conservation measures that will help.”
The Inflation Reduction Act provides an additional $19.5 billion for NRCS to deliver technical and financial assistance to producers for Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Mitigation Activities through existing USDA conservation programs. This funding helps producers implement climate-smart agriculture practices on their operations.
As a result, Colorado landowners are utilizing these funds to install tens of thousands of acres of cover crops and thousands of acres of wildlife habitat that benefit both soil health (improved carbon stocks) and wildlife such as lesser prairie chickens. The lesser prairie-chicken is a nationally identified target species of the NRCS-led Working Lands for Wildlife initiative.