An Overview Of Our Solution
The project nominated herein is our, S.A.V.E.™ - Support Agricultural Viability and the Environment, initiative that is a practical way to help perform land conservation, as well as increase biodiversity, by making it economically viable. Specifically, NJA is working with NJ farmers, and creating an environment that is supportive of agriculture, thus providing a blueprint for the next generation to lead and manage agricultural lands away from development and keep land in farming. The project has demonstrated its commitment to agriculture as a business and not just a source of open space and has provided a strategy to sustain the industry by marring preservation and planning efforts, economic development activities with natural resource conservation practices that meets the biodiversity goals outlined in the State's Wildlife Action Plan for various species.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Suburban
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: North America
General Information
Organization type
Nirlaba
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Grasslands
Population impacted
8.96 million people in entire state of NJ
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
185,000 acres in entire state of NJ used for corn/soybean (according to latest available state ag census 2015.
Production quantity
13,880,000 BU for corn/soybean in entire state of NJ (according to latest available state ag census 2015)
People employed
9,071 people employed in farming for entire state of NJ (according to available latest state ag census 2015)
Solution
Describe your solution
According to the Agricultural Smart Growth Plan for NJ, NJ has a finite land base of 4.8 million acres that is shared by urban, suburban and rural communities alike. Much of that land is already developed or has been preserved through various open space and farmland preservation initiatives. What remains is 1.7 million acres of unprotected, undeveloped land, more than half of which is actively devoted to agriculture and forestry production. However, farmland is in high demand for development in what is already the most densely populated state in the nation and is too often viewed as just another location for more houses. One solution to sprawl is creating an environment that is supportive of agriculture, addressing the needs of farms and equipping the next generation to lead and manage the industry. Strategies to sustain the industry married with preservation and planning efforts, economic development activities and natural resource conservation practices, are what is required to keep farms farming. By implementing the SAVE initiative through providing niche market products and establishing a "farming for ecosystem services model", stewardship and conservation practices for critical habitat and biodiversity are inherently captured into the same initiative and provides restoration/management for the future conservation of our state's species of greatest conservation need, specifically critical native grassland and early successional habitat.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
SAVE began with NJA guaranteeing participating farmers both a set price for the sunflower crop and a market. This is in contrast to the growth of traditional crops where markets fluctuate constantly and income is never guaranteed. Farms in NJ average 81 acres, median 22 acres. Thus many farmers in NJ must lease additional acreage in order to farm at a scale that makes farming an economically feasible risk. In most cases farming in NJ is a "break-even" endeavor. Sunflowers grown on a commercial scale aren’t characteristic of NJ. Most black oil sunflower seed is produced in the Upper Midwest U.S. and must be trucked over 1,500 miles to New Jersey. It offers the consumer no connection to the land, and no knowledge of its origin, where it came from, who grew it, or how it got into the store. SAVE seed is different because participating farmers operate small family farms and live in our communities. The SAVE. seed tells a story about real farmers, their farms, conservation on NJ land and a lessened carbon footprint. It also is a great networking opportunity for farmers to showcase and sell other products they produce. It is one thing to protect land from development, but it is equally important to manage it for the benefit of biodiversity. Ignored, habitat becomes overgrown with invasives and becomes less desirable to certain species, typically the T&E species. The revenue from SAVE has gone to, and continues to, help establish and manage native grassland habitat for grassland dependent species on a State Wildlife Management Areas in NJ. Since the project’s inception in 2008, many more framers have participated, markets grew for the products and the SAVE initiative has provided an enormous education opportunity to the general public. SAVE also received attention by winning the Governor’s Ecological Excellence Award for Land Preservation in 2011 and was featured in major news media outlets outside of NJ, including CBS news NY and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
External connections
One of NJA’s organizational objectives is the “preservation of New Jersey's valuable natural habitats.” This is very challenging to accomplish in the face of pressures in the State for land development for housing and services for an increasingly sprawling population. A good bit of habitat is in the hands of farm owners and the preservation and enhancement of farms is at the heart of S.A.V.E.. NJ Audubon took a leadership role to engage an AG community that traditionally were not receptive to conservation organizations and explained how the S.A.V.E. project was conceived as a way to help preserve small farms while linking their preservation to restoring or enhancing natural resources and biodiversity and enlisting citizen-customers support for these goals. The farming community, including local producers, the State Department of Agriculture, USDA-NRCS, USDA- FSA, USFWS, and NJDFW embraced this concept. But it was the farmers that were the key to moving the project forward and now work hand in hand on other conservation initiatives with NJA and state agencies.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
NJ is the most densely populated state in the US. In NJ farmland is under constant attack by development and urban sprawl and farmers are finding it harder to secure land to farm. Since many rare species in NJ depend on privately owned land, the fate of NJ farms and wildlife are inseparably linked. NJA has developed an innovative strategy to simultaneously promote economically viable farms and develop and manage habitat for maximum biodiversity benefits. This project is entitled S.A.V.E.™ an acronym for Support Agricultural Viability and the Environment. S.A.V.E.™ Created in 2008, S.A.V.E.™ helps farmland preservation and increase biodiversity by working with local NJ farmers to grow black oil sunflowers into their corn/bean rotations. The sunflowers are then harvested for sale as either for food-grade sunflower oil, as well as birdseed and through the SAVE initiative it promotes the importance of local farms by connecting people with farmers and the locally grown movement.
Describe the context in which you are operating
For SAVE, NJA guarantees participating farmers a set fair price (based on input from the farmers and market rates) for what they can grow as well as direct access to an established market. In contrast, the growing of traditional crops for a small farmer has no such financial assurance or large established contact/customer base. A guaranteed revenue stream plus contact to the broader NJ client community with the potential for sale of other products offers the small NJ farmer the possibility of long-term survival and keeping land in farming and helps reduces the chance of selling off farmland for development which would decrease biodiversity. The other innovative and equally important objective of S.A.V.E. is that, besides farm preservation, it creates an additional way to promote biodiversity by enhancement, restoration and protection critical wildlife habitat and the natural resources in NJ. Every SAVE product sold has built-in revenue to go to this goal. Having a steady and dependable flow of funds to dedicate to natural resource protection and improvement gives stability to this campaign and connects additional clientele that are buying the product for reasons beyond just supporting local farming. Moreover, in most cases these dedicated funds are used to hire local farmers to implement conservation practices on managed lands; again adding to their revenue and reinforcing their connection to the land.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
The revenue from SAVE has gone to establishment hundreds of acres native warm-season grassland habitat for grassland dependent species in NJ. Grasslands in the eastern US rank as one of the country’s 21 most endangered ecosystems. They are also one of the only habitats in NJ that face an almost immediate threat of disappearing from the state. As expected wildlife dependent upon grassland ecosystems has declined dramatically. Since the program began in 2008, grasslands established have shown increases in several State T&E bird species, such as, Bobolink, Savannah Sparrow, Grasshopper Sparrow and Eastern Meadowlark. Not only does the restoration and management work done at this site provide critical breeding and foraging areas for rare grassland birds, the area also provides suitable habitat for other species, thus increasing the recreational use of the land for wildlife watching, hiking, etc, thus again creating ecotourism and recreational benefits benefiting the rural economy around the WMAs. Furthermore, the sunflower fields themselves provide an immediate biodiversity benefit for pollinators. By incorporating sunflower into a rotation, unlike corn, sunflowers provide critical resources for beneficial insects. In 2012 the American Museum of Natural History Division of Invertebrate Zoology, performed bee surveys in the SAVE sunflower fields and found the fields to be prolific in wild bee species, including two NJ state records and some that were not common for the region
Language(s)
English
Water
500 characters max.
Food Security/Nutrition
Sunflower Oil, made with the SAVE seeds provide exceptional nutritional benefits because of sunflower's impressive fatty acid content, which includes palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid, and linoleic acid. The combination of fatty acids in the body are extremely important to maintain various elements of human health, and sunflower oil can help maintain that balance.
Economic/Sustainable Development
To ensure the long-term survival of SAVE, NJA reached out to retailers throughout the State to carry SAVE sunflower products. NJA held meetings with interested retailers and participating farmers to discuss the project and increase their interconnection. Besides the practical aspects of selling from a new source, SAVE aims to give retailers “ownership” for assisting the NJ farmers to keep farming in NJ which in-turn helps promote natural resource protection and stewardship for the community at l
Climate
500 characters max.
Sustainability
The project has continued successfully and grown because of farmer buy-in that using sunflower in a rotation can have economic benefits. Also costs for seed, planting, harvesting etc. and using using traditional farm equipment for sunflower are more or less the same as planting for corn/soybean. Thus, a farmer does not need to incur additional expense when adding it into rotation. Also there is a significant added value to having sunflower in a rotation in the form of ecotourism. The fields attracted thousands people to walk the field, wildlife watch, become educated on the importance of supporting local AG products, as well as understanding the connection between agriculture, biodiversity, food supply, & natural resource protection
Return on investment
Now that the SAVE pilot program is over and the results have been embraced by the agricultural community, it only now becomes a cost to grow the crop.The economics of growing sunflowers are fairly similar to growing soybeans. Economic returns for both producer, as well as, for habitat establishment based solely in revenue associated with the sale of the seed/oil and ecotourism linked to the SAVE sunflower far exceed the initial start-up funding. Ecological returns on investment again have helped restore and management critical wildlife habitat as well as helped farmers open up new economic opportunities that ultimately help keep farmland in agriculture.
Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
The SAVE model can be applied to various crops and regions. Recently SAVE crops are now being grown in Fl. NJA has expanded to market pine wood chips and birdhouses and feeders made from Atlantic White Cedar harvest by NJ forest owners that are doing forest management work under approved Forest Stewardship Plans. "The opportunities are limitless," said state Agriculture Sec. Doug Fisher of SAVE initiative in a 4/20/11 press conference regarding the launch of the Jersey Grown Wood products. The SAVE initiative is providing stable and increasing income through niche markets to help keep agriculture sustainable and married to biodiversity. Thus, sustainable farming and stable habitat management results in quality land conservation such as protection of natural resources, reduction of carbon footprint and increases in native wildlife. Funding needs for the SAVE program are for additional staff to provide technical assistance for on the farm wildlife management and habitat restoration.