The Allamakee SWCD is pleased to announce that the McKnight Foundation has accepted our application for a Conservation Lease Project.  The District’s Conservation Lease Specialist, Sara Berges, will work with interested landowners, and hopefully operators as well, to create a lease addendum that specifies conservation practices to be implemented on specific fields.  It will look similar to a conservation plan but will be more detailed and will include such topics as specific crop rotations, required conservation practices, and nutrient management.  It can also include stipulations for non-compliance, shared costs for conservation practice installation, and residue management, as well as many other topics.  The goal would be to have the landlord and renter work with the conservation lease specialist to determine their priorities for the farm and work together to come to an agreement about how to address those priorities.

Keep an eye on the Waukon Standard and this website for announcements about public informational meetings about the project and resulting lease addendums.   We hope to hold a few meetings this fall.  We are working alongside the Drake Agricultural Law Center on this project to ensure that the lease addendums meet legal requirements and to build on the past work they have done, as can be seen on their website sustainablefarmlease.org.

If you would like more information on this project or may be interested, please stop by the office, call us at 563-568-2246 ext. 3, or email Sara at [email protected].