H2Ohio is Ashland SWCD’s new carrot

My favorite thing about working for Ashland Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) is that we get to be the carrot and not the stick.

If you’re unfamiliar with that metaphor, it’s the idea that a combination of rewards and punishments can be used to get a desired behavior. The original cartoon this metaphor goes back to shows a race between two donkeys and their jockeys. One jockey tries to get the most out of his donkey by beating him with a stick; the other jockey has tied a carrot to his stick and dangles it out in front of the donkey encouraging the donkey to run toward the reward.

In our case, the desired outcome or reward is conserving Ashland County’s soil and water resources. Other agencies and organizations carry the burden of enforcing government regulations and the subsequent penalties when those rules and regulations aren’t followed. Fortunately for me, soil and water conservation districts across the country were built upon the foundational belief of implementing voluntary soil and water conservation practices. 

This is so crucial in our conservation culture that soil and water conservation districts across the nation refer to the farmers and residents they work with as cooperators because that’s just what we are—cooperating partners. We believe we can encourage and implement even more conservation practices and programs voluntarily than through mandates and regulations.

For us, that means that every cooperator we work with comes into our office because they want to be a good steward. No one forces our cooperators to plant cover crops, use no-till management, develop a grazing plan, follow a nutrient management plan, manage stormwater, or any other conservation practice or program.

You may be wondering exactly what our office brings to this partnership. First, we bring expertise; our board is committed to providing our staff with premier training and certification opportunities. Not only do we attend training by Ohio Department of Agriculture engineers on how to design, develop, and install a variety of conservation practices, but we also attend industry training and events to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and practices. And, we gain experience from working with producers across the county; you may plant 300 acres of cover crops, but we work with producers planting 4,000+ acres each year.

We are also committed to seeking conservation dollars and putting them into the hands of Ashland County cooperators to help them implement conservation practices. That may include providing technical assistance to design and install practices funded by our partners at the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, or it may be coordinating the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District’s cover crop, nutrient management, grazing plan, log jam removal, or livestock exclusion fencing projects.

It might be writing grants for new, innovative equipment to be used by cooperators in our county. In the last five years, we’ve received funding to purchase a cover crop interseeder, a cover crop crimper/roller, a small ground-driven manure spreader, and a small, ground-driven seeder all through grant monies.

Or maybe that involves developing new programs through grants to enhance connections between our cooperating producers and their end consumers by coordinating farm markets or even developing new, innovative educational programs like our now annual Rain Beat on Main Street event.

One new program we’re excited to bring to our Ashland County cooperators in 2024 is the H2Ohio agricultural program. This new, statewide expansion won’t look like the agricultural H2Ohio program in the Western Lake Erie Basin; instead, this rollout will focus on smaller amounts of acres per county, be limited to grain cropland, and will only cover nutrient management plan development. The number of funded acres in each county will be smaller, and the caps for each producer will be smaller as the program begins to gain traction across the state.

To participate in the program, producers will be required to develop a voluntary nutrient management plan. The basis of these plans will include using recent soil tests and projected crop rotations and yields to develop nutrient plans that follow the Tri-State recommendations. However, producers with livestock may be required to develop a comprehensive nutrient management plan instead. But don’t worry—our staff can help with that, 

Farmers and/or their retailers or crop consultants will create an account through the MyFarms system to input their data and reporting information. MyFarms will import information from your MyJohnDeere account or Climate Fieldview platforms. Producers who don’t use those tools can still sign up using the same maps used when reporting crops to the Farm Service Agency.

And don’t worry: our staff is in this with you! We will be setting up workstations in our office and helping walk you through every step of the program, even if you think tech is not your thing.

As this program sign-up kicks off later this spring, we’ll be sharing more details. But for now, plan to attend our March 21 Conservation Chat: We’re Rooting for You at Valley Vista Farm outside of Jeromesville to get the latest sign-up information for H2Ohio.

And for us, the best part of the H2Ohio program is the same thing we enjoy the most about all of our conservation programs: participation is voluntary and led by our cooperators. We’re always excited to work with cooperators who want to help themselves protect the soil and water resources of our county.