GRAND LAKE ST. MARYS EQIP DEMONSTRATION PROJECT EXPANDED - More Farmers Have More Time to Sign-up!
 

Contact: Christina Coulon, 614-255-2471
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Fact Sheet

Celina, March 21, 2008 - The $1 million Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) project announced in February by Congressman John Boehner and Senator Sherrod Brown has been expanded to cover the entire Grand Lake St. Marys Watershed, encompassing approximately 60,000 acres. The sign up period has been extended as well, running until Friday, April 11, 2008.

Terry Cosby, State Conservationist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) extend the sign-up period as a result of the 2002 Farm Bill extension. “We were working with a very short sign-up period to begin with and are excited to be able to extend the sign-up period by four weeks,” Cosby stated. The initial sign-up was from February 25 through March 14.

“The decision to expand the area from the initial 20,000-acre project area in the Chickasaw and Barnes Creek watersheds will meet the demand for the project in the remaining 39,485 acres of the watershed,” explains Cosby. “The watershed has traditionally experienced a demand for EQIP beyond available funding.”

The focus of the EQIP demonstration project will remain the same, encouraging the creation of buffer strips along creeks running into Grand Lake St. Marys and for the planting of cover crops. Incentive payments will cover a majority of the planting costs, with the rest covered by participating farmers, who must meet eligibility requirements established by EQIP.

For more information contact Steve McDevitt in Auglaize County at 419-738-4016 or Jim Will in Mercer County at 419-586-2548.
 

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