Regenerative Farmer Network Grant awarded to Washtenaw farmers
By Paul Buzzard, Conservation Tech
For many years, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) has worked with farmers and landowners through the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP) to address pollution risks through sealing abandoned wells, proper chemical storage, nutrient management, etc.
In 2024, MDARD expanded its support for Michigan farmers by establishing the Regenerative Agriculture Program . Regenerative agriculture focuses on improving soil health with six principles: 1) understand the context of the farm; 2) minimize soil disturbance; 3) maximize diversity; 4) keep soil covered; 5) have living roots year-round; and 6) integrate livestock. To measure the impact of these principles, conservation technicians across the state assess soil health through compaction, permeability, aggregation and other assessments, as well examine biological soil health with Cornell University soil tests. To expand on this soil testing, MDARD awarded a Regenerative Farmer Network Grant (RFNG) to the newly formed, farmer-led Washtenaw Agroecology Network.
WCCD is serving as the collaborator of the new network, which consists of Michigan row crop farmers with between several hundred to over a thousand acres of corn, soybeans, and wheat. The funding will be used in part to conduct more comprehensive Haney and BeCrop soil health tests so farmers can learn more about their lands’ biological soil health and in turn how to improve nutrient use efficiency. RFNG farmers will then experiment with using biological soil enhancements like compost, manure and microbial inoculants together with less tillage and more cover crops to build soil health with an ultimate goal of getting more nutrients from the soil so fertilizer inputs can be lowered and profitability can increase.
For more information about the Washtenaw County Agroecology Network, please contact Paul Buzzard (Paul@washtenawcd.org). For more information about the RFNG initiative, visit MDARD’s website.