​By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader, Bradford County Conservation District
Farmers today face challenges.  Farmers of any day have.  So too will farmers of the future.  That is one reason a group like the Future Farmers of America (FFA) exists – to help get them ready.
Four Northeast Bradford High School students are now wearing blue and gold as they begin a series of leadership challenges that will shape them for life.  Joshua Keeney, Emma Neuber, Kale Winters, and Kaleb Keeney are obviously willing to grow as they don their first FFA jacket in January 2021.  Their jackets were awarded to them from the Pennsylvania FFA Alumni Association after each wrote an essay about what the FFA jacket means to them and about their plans in FFA and in agriculture.

By: Amy Kneller, Ag Resource Specialist
Are you interested in protecting farms, farmland, and a persons’ ability to farm?  Protecting agriculture doesn’t always require a conservation easement – it can mean simply securing the right of farmers to farm without dealing with overly burdensome regulations. That’s the role of an Agricultural Security Area (ASA), where agriculture is a primary activity in the municipality. Farmers work with municipalities to develop ASAs, which demonstrate that farming is a local priority and promote more permanent and viable farming operations.

By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader
Conditions get tough for managing livestock in the winter.  It can be stressful for animals, farmers, and our natural resources.  Let’s consider steps to dramatically decrease cold snap stress.
If a farmer can cut the wind and give his animals a solid place to land their feet, our winter temps will cause little stress.  If relatively dry with a barrier against bitter wind, our animals like 15 degrees F, better than 90 degrees.

​By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader
Local farmers are receiving a new wave of “house calls” from Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).  These calls create some anxiety, so let’s try to get some background on where they are coming from.

​By: Nathan Dewing, Agricultural Team Leader, Bradford County Conservation District
Life is drawn to water.  We all can relate to that.  Land bordering waterways and waterbodies is teaming with life.  Riparian is a term literally meaning “riverbank”, or land beside the water.  How we manage our riparian land has far reaching effects.  Therefore, the conservation district gives considerable attention to equipping landowners to manage them well. 
Current focus on the Chesapeake Bay watershed is opening many opportunities for landowners wishing to improve riparian areas, including grant funding, plant materials, and more.

​An Excerpt from Pennsylvania’s Nutrient Management Program
Nutrient management traditionally has been concerned with optimizing the economic returns from nutrients used to produce a crop. More recently, nutrient management also has begun to address ways to minimize the negative impact of nutrients on the environment.
Programs such as the Chesapeake Bay Program and the Nutrient Management Act in Pennsylvania have focused attention on improving nutrient management on Commonwealth farms.

By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist, Bradford County Conservation District
If you have, or intend to, plant cover crops, please read this column.  We all hear the benefits touted about cover crops- less erosion, having a living plant in the ground at all times, alleviating compaction, retaining nutrients for the next crop, giving food and shelter to microbes in the soil, and so on.  It is a great list and will do some miraculous things to the soil.  Try it on a limited basis, if you haven’t already.  Then get a shovel out and really look at what happened.  There are some benefits that definitely go with cover crops.  However, there are some things you should know beforehand that really can affect how those cover crops grow.  We have two years under our belt now with our highboy planter.  It has been a couple really wet years, so they haven’t been the best, but we have learned some interesting things that I think need to be shared.  They are things that I have NOT heard in any other cover crop presentation.  It’s like, “plant them and life will be good”.  Well, not here.  We have really struggled to get some good crops growing, but with the lessons learned, I think that will change.

​By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist, Bradford County Conservation District
There was a joke in school back in my day that went like, “Do you know how to keep a person in suspense?  I will tell you later”.  Well, I told you I would help you pay for some of these conservation practices, most notably fencing out streams, in the next column and yet I didn’t.  I was keeping you in suspense.  Miranda had such a good article that I just had to let her go first.
I would like to remind you that even though we here at the District may be doing it for other reasons (clean water, and who wants that?), the real reason to do any of this is for the animals themselves.  The happier they are, the faster they grow (for production), and the more they will love us back.  

By: Miranda Neville, Agricultural Resource Specialist
Every spring all of the farmers I know start to get super antsy and excited to get planting done, only to roll right in to hay season (or whatever crops they grow), then followed immediately by corn harvest in the fall. There is no time for breaks, just a lot of racing to beat the next rainstorm and praying for good summer sun. When they’re planting those seeds, they are planting hope; hope for the future, but it’s important not to forget to take some time every now and then to admire the present moments.

By: Kevin Brown, Agricultural Resource Specialist, Bradford County Conservation District
Most animal owners that I know of have animals for one reason.  “They enjoy them”.  Plain and simple.  No matter the species, people love their animals and caring for them brings great comfort.  Had a bad day at work, go visit your animals.  Been cooped in for 6 months because of COVID (Yep, I just did that.  Can’t have a conversation without anymore), go visit your animals.  They just make you feel better.  It is relaxing and uncomplicated.  We hear about “comfort pets” all the time on TV.  They just have that effect.  Now, because they make us feel so much better, and we love them so much, doesn’t it make sense to do what is right for them?  Shouldn’t we show them a little gratitude?  How do I propose you do that?  I am sure there are the common ways that you are thinking (petting, treats/grain, riding them, etc.). Let me bring up an area that one probably never thinks of - their surroundings.  Their day-to-day life.  Bear with me and let me explain.