Chesapeake Bay Foundation releases report on economic impact of investing practices to reduce farm runoff

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) released a report  on the economic impact of investing in practices that reduce polluted farm runoff.

The report details how businesses and workers in farmers’ communities would benefit from investment in helping the watershed states meet their agricultural pollution-reduction commitments under the Chesapeake Clean Water Blueprint with conservation practices such as forested buffers, tree planting, and rotational grazing.

However, the Virginia Farm Bureau says the Eastern Shore’s farmers have been leaders in implementing conservation practices already.

Eastern Shore farmers are committed to reducing the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that are attributed to coming from agriculture land. The challenge that farmers on the Eastern Shore and the rest of the Commonwealth have faced is the roller coaster for state funding to match the amount needed for the Commonwealth to achieve its water quality goals. On July 1, 2022, Virginia fully funded for the first time the amounted needed for implementation of these conservation practices since the state started estimating the need in 2009. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation report is an update of studies they started in 2014 trying to quantify the economic benefits of implementation of conservation practices. Fighting for funding to help farmers implement conservation practices is something that both farmers and Chesapeake Bay Foundation have worked on together. This study shows what farmers already had recognized that the investment in conversation practices benefits farmers, communities and water quality.®

To read the full report, go to cbf.org/AgEcon

Roughly 90 percent of the pollution cuts states still must make will need to come from agriculture. The CBF claims conservation practices in many cases are the most cost-effective way to achieve these reductions.