Stroud Water Research Center’s Farm Stewardship Program provides technical and financial assistance to farmers and landowners to implement best management practices (BMPs) to protect water quality and improve stream health. This program encourages farmers and landowners to meet a higher standard of stewardship excellence, and it shows a wide variety of agencies and funders that farmers and landowners are willing to meet this higher standard through practices such as the restoration of streamside forest buffers as a condition of receiving funds for BMPs. In 2013 the Stroud Center secured landowner commitments for work on 15 farms to implement about 95 agricultural BMPs including about 75 acres of forested buffer on 15 miles of streambanks. Education and research elements are integral.
Funded by: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and Pa. Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Growing Greener Program
Project Leader: Matthew J. Ehrhart
Collaborators: Red Barn Consulting, Inc., TeamAg, Inc., Berks and Chester County Conservation Districts, multiple land trusts and conservancies, and others.
Project Years: 2013, 2014
