BenC,

I've been aware of the EQIP program for about 5 years now. I've used it on other farm-related projects in which I was responsible for conservation planning. The vast majority of farmers know all about these programs run by NRCS. Their county extension agents, NRCS personnel, several different publications they receive in the mail, and a host of other sources are constantly educating and reminding farmers of their existence and parameters.

Since NRCS is the implementing agency for this entire water quality program in Northern Arkansas, it only seems reasonable that they would include implementation of EQIP and other Farm Bill conservation incentives to the fullest extent possible by law and allocations. That's just the way they work.

Now, the other stuff I found regarding the use of poultry litter for power generation, the chemicals that can reduce phosph runoff, and the move to create a farm-to-farm market for the litter which moves it out of the watershed in question, I just did a little Googling to find some news stories. This is a MAJOR topic of current events in the Ozarks. MO and OK are putting a great deal of pressure on AR to get them to "catch up," and continuing with their own pressure to improve things on their own sides of the borders.

FYI, I added some posts to the thread in the Conservation Forum that explain this more fully.

The biggest problem NRCS faces with the whole mess is the attitudes of the "typical" Ozark region farmer. And AR doesn't have a lock on this stereotype either. We deal with them here in MO and they have them in OK, too. But the AR legislature historically caves in to the poultry lobby without a fight. We're talking about the home turf of Tyson Foods, Inc...the largest frozen food conglomerate in the world. In general, farmers from this region resent ANY gov't "interference" in their "way of life." The old Prohibition attitudes still reign supreme, and all gov't agents are viewed as either Carpet Baggers or Revenuers...or both. Country folk in this part of the country (and I am country folk from this part of the country) tend to still do things like poaching deer and bears, hulling streams and rivers to kill all the fish (Indian subsistence fishing method using Black Walnut hulls which works about as well as dynamite, though not as fast or as noisy), and clandestine dumping of septic tank pumper trucks into area streams to avoid paying the processing fee at the local sewage treatment plant. These types of things are COMMONPLACE.

Now, of course, there are plenty of folks in the Ozarks (especially nowadays with the influx of folks from other regions) who do NOT do such obviously destructive things, but in "polite society" we have ignored these practices and allowed them to continue; saying "Oh well, things are just different around here." But we have become too populous and we have become a huge beef, dairy, and poultry producing region to allow such attitudes to continue to exist.

It really is a battle of ideals. We really do have WILLFUL repeat violators. And we really do have some politicians (at least in AR) who fight to protect the "old ways."

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Fishing the Ozarks