Clearing woody vegetation, draining wet areas, filling depressions, constructing dikes or levees and land leveling all can make it easier for a farmer to work his land.
It also could result in the loss of some or all U.S. Department of Agriculture program benefits.
Delta farmers seeking to improve drainage conditions in their fields must be in compliance with federal wetlands requirements.
Federal rules define a wetland as an area that is inundated or saturated by ground or surface water at a frequency and duration sufficient to support vegetation that is adapted to life in saturated soils.
“In the Delta, pretty much anything that’s in trees is a wetland. It’s a government policy to retain what wetlands we have,” said Palmer Brock, a soil conservationist with the Greenwood office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Brock said some exceptions are provided for “farmed wetland.”
“If it was cleared up and put in production prior to 1985, you can’t land level it or put fill on it,” he said.
Under the 1985 Food Security and subsequent Farm Bills, USDA participants are prohibited from manipulating wetlands.
Violators can lose their federal conservation practice payments, disaster payments, price support payments and loans.
Often, Brock said, there’s simply no way to find out if a farmer has complied with the program’s requirements, although the NRCS does conduct aerial mapping annually to ensure compliance.
If stumps and other vegetation is removed from a field, federal law requires that farmers perform a 2-to-1 offset to mitigate the effects on the loss of wetland.
That means if a farmer takes one acre of trees out of a farm, he must offset that by taking two acres of farmland out of row crop production. Brock said such an offset is permanent, meaning that the land cannot be later revert back to row crops.
He said such an offset requires a visit from the NRCS area biologist. “It may even go to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” Brock said.
Permitting for such work typically requires several months for approval, he said.
For more information, call the Natural Resources Conservation Service Greenwood Office at 455-1199, extension 3.
• Contact Bob Darden at 581-7239 or bdarden@gwcommonwealth.com.
