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Voluntary water quality assessment for Minnesota farmers

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture is helping farmers determine if elements within their operation pose a threat to water quality.

Brad Redlin manages the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification program.

“We look at the different practices out there, whether it’s nutrient management, tillage (or) what structural practices are there or have been (there) to see if there’s any kind of water quality risk.  If there is one, we’ll work with the farmer to determine what kind of mechanisms they might want to try to remedy that risk.”

He tells Brownfield the voluntary program provides technical and financial assistance and works individually with each farm.

“It’s going to be on (the farmer’s) pace, relative to their physical conditions, management and crops.  We don’t do this as a race, we do this as an effective way to make sure that the economics work for the producer and the protections work for the water.”

And with changing environmental rules impacting farmers, Redlin says the certification provides regulatory certainty.

“For the next ten years (once certified), any new agricultural water quality law that comes into place; (the farmer) is going to be deemed to be in compliance with it.  Because after all, they’ve gone out and had their farm risk-assessed for any threats to water quality.  If they’ve found a way to mitigate (those threats), there’s no reason that they shouldn’t be deemed to be in compliance with any law seeking to protect water.”

More than 100 Minnesota farms have been certified, and Redlin says more information on the Agricultural Water Quality Certification program online.