Speaker 1: Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
Speaker 1: wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
Speaker 1: conserving both. Big shout out to aax Hunt for their
Speaker 1: support of this podcast. I'm your host, Lake Pickle, and Hey,
Speaker 1: Happy New Year twenty twenty six. Already, man, who could
Speaker 1: have seen this coming. With the new year comes all
Speaker 1: kinds of exciting possibilities and opportunities. It's also around the
Speaker 1: start of a new year that you always hear folks
Speaker 1: making their so called New Year's resolutions. Well, today I'm
Speaker 1: going to challenge all of us, myself included, to a
Speaker 1: wildlife conservation mind in new Year's resolution. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to be focusing in on the conserving wild
Speaker 1: places mantra of this podcast as we dive into learning
Speaker 1: about how you, yes, you and me can make a
Speaker 1: real intangible difference on the ground that we hunt, fish,
Speaker 1: or recreate on by learning about things like conservation programs,
Speaker 1: the farm bill, easy ways to get involved with both,
Speaker 1: and learning from folks that have walked to this path themselves.
Speaker 1: Let's dive in. It's a picture perfect winter day in
Speaker 1: central Mississippi, bright clear, sunny skies, crisp air. It's the
Speaker 1: kind of day that when you step outside and the
Speaker 1: wind hits you, you immediately start thinking about how you
Speaker 1: can get into the woods in some form or fashion.
Speaker 1: And I'm with my longtime friend Josh Thrash. We're riding
Speaker 1: through his property and he's showing me the various amounts
Speaker 1: of wildlife habitat work that he's done on his place.
Speaker 1: I'm asking about his prescribed burning and how the Bob
Speaker 1: White quill have responded to it. It was around this
Speaker 1: time that we pulled up on something that I don't
Speaker 1: believe I've seen in my lifetime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those are long leaves, and we were assisted through
Speaker 2: the EQUIP Program EQIP in planting and sight prepping and
Speaker 2: planting those, and I just kind of had an inkling
Speaker 2: that I don't know, I just always liked the story
Speaker 2: of the long leaf because all this used to be
Speaker 2: long leaf before the number companies came in and cut
Speaker 2: it for timber and turpentine. And there's still some long
Speaker 2: leaves around these perimeters, but it's been I guess a
Speaker 2: couple of generation of lib lollies in here since, and
Speaker 2: I've just always kind of thought it was neat to
Speaker 2: see the long leafs on the property lines and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I got to thinking about it, and I knew
Speaker 2: you could burn long leaves at a young age, and
Speaker 2: I thought, well, that'd be cool to have for wildlife.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I got to looking into it, and this is the
Speaker 2: far northern end of the long leaf territory.
Speaker 1: You don't that's I'm saying. If you hear about long
Speaker 1: leafs in Mississippi these days, it's typically South Mississippi. You
Speaker 1: don't hear about them this far north. And we're not north,
Speaker 1: we're central, but it's north for long leafs.
Speaker 2: But we decided to pull the trigger. And you know,
Speaker 2: I won't probably won't ever see any monetary benefit from
Speaker 2: these long leaves in my lifetime. But I also thought
Speaker 2: it would be something unique for the next generation to
Speaker 2: have here that a lot of people wouldn't have. It's
Speaker 2: five hundred acres of yeah, plantation long leaf that had
Speaker 2: been well taken care of. So what you see out
Speaker 2: there right now is I would say ninety nine percent
Speaker 2: ninety eight percent long leaf.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, that's uh, that's time machine type stuff out there.
Speaker 1: It really is. The long leaf pine was once a
Speaker 1: keystone tree in the southeastern US a tree that at
Speaker 1: one time covered over ninety million acres, stretching all the
Speaker 1: way from Virginia to Texas. They're exceptionally adapted to fire,
Speaker 1: and they're part of critical habitat for all kinds of
Speaker 1: native animal and plant species like gopher, tortoises, red cockaded woodpeckers,
Speaker 1: bob white quail, and all kinds of grasses and wildflowers.
Speaker 1: When you see a long leaf pine, it's almost like
Speaker 1: seeing a relic, a lingering remnant of a time period
Speaker 1: when open prairie and savannah was much more prolific in
Speaker 1: this region of the country. They were heavily logged in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and were heavily reduced to
Speaker 1: roughly five percent of their original range. That's why when
Speaker 1: we came upon Josh's five hundred acres of planted long leafs,
Speaker 1: it was pretty much a showstopper for me. What was
Speaker 1: even better was hearing him talk about how positively he
Speaker 1: had seen all the wildlife respond to it, the deer,
Speaker 1: the quail, the turkeys, the incredible hunts he had been
Speaker 1: able to enjoy with his kids out there. What an
Speaker 1: awesome thing. One more thing to point out before we
Speaker 1: dive back in. You heard Josh say that he was
Speaker 1: able to get these long leafs planted through the EQUIP
Speaker 1: program e q IP. Remember that we're going to dive
Speaker 1: into that later on.
Speaker 2: So I've killed turkey's in this, I believe it. I
Speaker 2: killed a turkey right out there. Big turkey out there,
Speaker 2: not this past spring, but spring.
Speaker 1: Of twenty four, hanging out in this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was.
Speaker 2: I got a long lane that goes down through there,
Speaker 2: and he was in that lane with a hen. But
Speaker 2: after I burned this stuff in February, it's like a
Speaker 2: big green field here and they'll get out here.
Speaker 3: It's you, nayk.
Speaker 2: I've it's ended up probably being more than I ever
Speaker 2: thought it would be, far as your the ability to
Speaker 2: use them, to manage and hunt in them, and all that.
Speaker 2: It's really been. It's really been fun.
Speaker 1: As I spent the rest of the time going through
Speaker 1: Josh's property, it was really quite a sight to see
Speaker 1: the amount of effort and care he and his family
Speaker 1: have in that place is very evident. And the proof, well,
Speaker 1: it's right there in front of you from the sites,
Speaker 1: the stories of the good hunts, quail flushing off the
Speaker 1: side of the road. It's good land stewardship in motion,
Speaker 1: the kind of thing I want all of us to
Speaker 1: think about as we move through this episode. We're going
Speaker 1: to put a pause on the tour of Josh's property
Speaker 1: and his conservation work, but I promise we'll come back
Speaker 1: to it. For now, I want us to start getting
Speaker 1: a better understanding of some of these conservation programs that
Speaker 1: are out there, what they are and what they do.
Speaker 1: We're going to start big and work our way down
Speaker 1: to do these topics justice. I needed to call in
Speaker 1: subject to experts, and I think we found the perfect folks.
Speaker 4: My name's Aaron Field. I'm the director of Private Lands
Speaker 4: Conservation for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Live up here
Speaker 4: in western Minnesota, but we're Washington, DC based national nonprofit,
Speaker 4: and I cover the ag conservation portion of that portfolio,
Speaker 4: so everything from farm built conservation programs especially, and then
Speaker 4: looking for ways to get some private lands conservation work
Speaker 4: done in ways that benefit the adjacent public lands as well.
Speaker 1: The first thing I want Aaron to walk us through
Speaker 1: is the farm Bill. I would wager that most of
Speaker 1: you listening to this show have at least heard of
Speaker 1: the farm Bil but how many of us out there
Speaker 1: are actually tuned in to what impacts it can have
Speaker 1: on wildlife and wild habitats, hunting quality even I'll put
Speaker 1: myself on the chopping block here. When I was younger,
Speaker 1: I didn't know the Farm Bill had impacts much outside
Speaker 1: of commercial and row crop farming, so I didn't really
Speaker 1: pay that much attention to it. However, we're about to
Speaker 1: learn that in many ways it can shape the future
Speaker 1: for hunters and outdoors men and women.
Speaker 4: The Farm Bill is a huge package of the legislation
Speaker 4: that we've been passing in this country for oh ninety
Speaker 4: years or so, we could call it. And originally it
Speaker 4: was purely a farming ranch egg policy in that package,
Speaker 4: and in about nineteen eighty five Farm Bills when we
Speaker 4: really added a big chunk of conservation to the bill.
Speaker 4: And so the chunk of the farm Bill that I
Speaker 4: pay most of my attention to is called Title II.
Speaker 4: It's the conservation title, and the reason that hunters and
Speaker 4: anglers should be paying attention to it are multiple. One
Speaker 4: of the things I think people might not realize, or
Speaker 4: maybe they do but haven't thought about as much as
Speaker 4: they could have, is on private land in this country.
Speaker 4: If we see good conservation work done on private land
Speaker 4: in the United States, the reason that got done is
Speaker 4: because the private landowner decided to do it. It's almost
Speaker 4: never because a regulation forced them to. It's almost never
Speaker 4: because somebody else had influence over It's because the private
Speaker 4: landowner decided to do it. Farmer or the rancher, the
Speaker 4: forest landowner made that choice, and oftentimes that choice is
Speaker 4: pretty expensive. Takes time and money to get that work done,
Speaker 4: whether it's you establishing native vegetation, whether it's controlling invasive species,
Speaker 4: whether it's managing a forest so that is more productive
Speaker 4: in terms of both timber and wildlife. And actions like that,
Speaker 4: especially over a nationwide scale, make a big impact on
Speaker 4: things that the rest of us benefit from, So things
Speaker 4: like improving water quality, things like clean air air, things
Speaker 4: like biodiversity maintenance or improvement, and then things like producing
Speaker 4: healthy wildlife populations, which you know as a hunter and
Speaker 4: I'm sure most of the listeners here hunters and anglers
Speaker 4: really care about.
Speaker 3: And so the.
Speaker 4: System we've created in this country largely supported through the
Speaker 4: Farm Bill, but also through various state and local programs
Speaker 4: as well to encourage more landowners to do work like
Speaker 4: that is a set of voluntary and incentive based programs
Speaker 4: administered by the United States Department of Agriculture that help
Speaker 4: offset some of the cost of doing good conservation work
Speaker 4: on those lands and hopefully encourage more people to get involved.
Speaker 1: So there's a whole lot to go through here, but
Speaker 1: this is the main dot that I want to connect
Speaker 1: right now. Remember Josh's long Leaf pine plantation that we
Speaker 1: rode through and he said he was able to get
Speaker 1: this planet through the EQUIP program. EQUIP stands for Environmental
Speaker 1: qual Incentives Program, and in short, it's a USDA program
Speaker 1: that provides financial incentives and assistance in helping landowners implement
Speaker 1: conservation practices. Josh's long Leaf Pine plantation is a perfect
Speaker 1: example of this, and EQUIP is not the only program
Speaker 1: like this. There's also CRP, which I'm sure many of
Speaker 1: you have heard of. It stands for Conservation Reserve Program
Speaker 1: and CSP which stands for Conservation Stewardship Program. All of
Speaker 1: these directly effect conservation being put back into the ground,
Speaker 1: and all of these fall under the Farm Bill, which
Speaker 1: is why it's in our best interest as hunters and
Speaker 1: anglers and conservationists to pay attention to.
Speaker 4: It where I live. If somebody drives past grass that
Speaker 4: doesn't have cows on it, it's they're going to call
Speaker 4: it CRP, whether it's actually enrolled in a program or not,
Speaker 4: and that's just its testament to the influence that that
Speaker 4: program has. So the farm bill is the vehicle that
Speaker 4: one reauthorizes all the programs you listed so that they
Speaker 4: continue to be funded and continue to function. Typically we
Speaker 4: do that every five years. That we're ways off of
Speaker 4: that right now, we're in a little different process currently,
Speaker 4: but the Farm Build reauthorizes those programs so they can
Speaker 4: continue to function, and it also provides the opportunity to
Speaker 4: make policy changes within the programs. And so in the
Speaker 4: normal process, what we would do is you'd pass a
Speaker 4: farm Build and then over the next five years, we'd
Speaker 4: be working with the agencies that are administering those programs.
Speaker 4: We'd be talking to landowners, we'd be talking to ag
Speaker 4: and commodity groups about the programs as well as other
Speaker 4: groups in the hunt Fish wildlife conservation space, and we'd
Speaker 4: be looking for ways that these programs aren't working quite
Speaker 4: as well as they should be. And then we can
Speaker 4: take that to Congress and say CRP the Conservation Reserve Program.
Speaker 4: Awesome program. Here is five tweaks that you could make
Speaker 4: to CRP that would make it work even better or
Speaker 4: equips been great the Environmental Quality and Centives program, but
Speaker 4: we'd really like to see some additional wildlife habitat happen
Speaker 4: through that program. Here's some suggestions for how those programs
Speaker 4: could be improved. And that's what would happen when we
Speaker 4: pass a farm bill. We've been working since about twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two here at TRCP to try to provide those recommendations,
Speaker 4: but those changes don't happen unless a farm bill passes.
Speaker 1: In short, the farm bill allows these programs to exist,
Speaker 1: to stay funded, and to be tweaked and changed around
Speaker 1: here and there if needed. And if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this show and you're not fully bought in on how
Speaker 1: this could affect hunting quality or even you directly, I
Speaker 1: can assure you it does. But allow me to share
Speaker 1: one example. Remember just a few episodes back, when we
Speaker 1: were talking, Mallard Duck declines, I want to let er
Speaker 1: explain from his perspective how the farm bill and conservation
Speaker 1: incentive programs affect that directly.
Speaker 4: So CRP specifically again Conservation Reserve Program. What that program
Speaker 4: does is it provides an opportunity if a farmer has
Speaker 4: a crop field that is eroding, that is vulnerable, that
Speaker 4: is not very productive, typically that would essentially provide a
Speaker 4: great a lot more good ecological goods and services, things
Speaker 4: like clean water, clean air, habitat if it were planted
Speaker 4: to perennial vegetation. This is a program that it provides
Speaker 4: funding to do that, and it does that over a
Speaker 4: ten or a fifteen year contract, which is another big thing,
Speaker 4: because once we get that grass established or those trees established,
Speaker 4: we don't want it to come out again in three years.
Speaker 4: We want it to stick around for a little while.
Speaker 4: But in the Prairie Pothole region, both the Conservation Reserve
Speaker 4: Program as it as it sit, those enrollments in that
Speaker 4: part of the country would have peaked somewhere in that
Speaker 4: twenty ten to twenty fifteen range. And actually that's when
Speaker 4: I was in college out in Jamestown, North Dakota, at
Speaker 4: the peak of CRP and the peak of pheasant populations
Speaker 4: in North Dakota, and I didn't even know how good
Speaker 4: I had it. But yes, the enrollment in that program
Speaker 4: has gone down a lot in that state. I'm speaking
Speaker 4: specifically to North Dakota. That's just where I've got the
Speaker 4: number in my head a little better. But that's a
Speaker 4: bigger chunk of the Prairie Pohole region as you're aware. Yeah,
Speaker 4: for a few reasons. One, there's been some tweaks to
Speaker 4: the program in the twenty eighteen Farm Bill that made
Speaker 4: it a little bit less attractive in terms of enrollment,
Speaker 4: but also just broader, we saw corn and soybean prices
Speaker 4: go way up during that period of time as well,
Speaker 4: and so if you're making a business decision as a
Speaker 4: farmer and a renal rate through CRP has gone down
Speaker 4: and the amount of money I can make on corn
Speaker 4: and soybeans has gone up, it makes it a little
Speaker 4: harder to make the business decision to keep that in
Speaker 4: grass and that definitely makes an impact on things like
Speaker 4: waterfowl populations, upland populations. And then also for deer, if
Speaker 4: you look at the number of deer tags that those
Speaker 4: states in the PPR have been able to issue a
Speaker 4: hunter's they've gone down precipitously, and I would lay a
Speaker 4: lot of that at the feet of a loss of CRP.
Speaker 1: Yeah, somewhere around like four point eight million acres lost.
Speaker 1: And to quantify that, I mean the entire Mississippi Delta,
Speaker 1: which is like if you live in Mississippi and you
Speaker 1: duck hunt, I mean there's other pockets here and there
Speaker 1: where you can do it, but the Mississippi Delta is
Speaker 1: where you're going to go, you know, like that's the
Speaker 1: most historically good area to do it. It's right around
Speaker 1: four million acres. So it's like, imagine that just gone,
Speaker 1: like no longer habitat. So it's like trying to paint
Speaker 1: the picture to someone that you know, maybe doesn't in
Speaker 1: this world how important these conservation programs are, like, how
Speaker 1: how much it can affect wildlife and wildlife populations. It's
Speaker 1: crazy to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And right now we're right at the enrollment cap
Speaker 4: for the CRP. We're at about twenty seven million acres
Speaker 4: enrolled in CRP, and that program does look a little
Speaker 4: different than it did years ago. We've got more acres
Speaker 4: in something called grassland CRP than we've had in the past,
Speaker 4: which has sort of shifted where that enrollment sits in
Speaker 4: the country a little bit. But we're at the cap.
Speaker 4: Commodity prices are not what they once were, and we're
Speaker 4: starting to hear from farmers that, man, we could really
Speaker 4: use some additional acres in this program, and we could
Speaker 4: really use some improved incentives in this program. So what
Speaker 4: we've got to do is get a farm bill pass
Speaker 4: so that we can make those changes.
Speaker 1: Believe me, I didn't ask Aaron to share that story
Speaker 1: and information with us just so we could lament on
Speaker 1: the days of more ducks, upland birds and even deer
Speaker 1: in the prairie Pothole region. I asked him to share
Speaker 1: it so we could all begin to understand how important
Speaker 1: this stuff is. Here's the basic truth. If you want wildlife,
Speaker 1: you have to have wildlife habitat. So understanding this stuff,
Speaker 1: like the farm bill, these incentive programs like CRP, CSP
Speaker 1: and EQUIP, I think it's very important both on public
Speaker 1: and private land. I might add, we need wildlife conservation
Speaker 1: happening on both.
Speaker 4: You look at a state like Minnesota. We've got quite
Speaker 4: a lot of public land, but it's concentrated in the
Speaker 4: northeast part of the state. It's not where I live.
Speaker 4: So if we don't have good habitsat on the ground
Speaker 4: on private land, or access as well on private land,
Speaker 4: or missing the boat. And then when you look further west,
Speaker 4: even in a state like Nevada where you're something like
Speaker 4: ninety five percent public, that five percent that's where the
Speaker 4: water is, that's where a lot of the feed is.
Speaker 4: It's incredibly important for wildlife in the West to have
Speaker 4: those private lands in good shape and providing good habitat
Speaker 4: as well, even if you've got tons of public land
Speaker 4: that you can manage. There's a program called the Voluntary
Speaker 4: Public Access and Habitat and Centives Program. It's the only
Speaker 4: federal program that incentivizes hunting and fishing access on private land,
Speaker 4: which is a big deal to folks like me in
Speaker 4: the Midwest and especially in the East, but also touches
Speaker 4: down in the West in some really really interesting ways.
Speaker 4: There's lots of opportunities to make these things work better.
Speaker 1: I've made this example about my home state of Mississippi
Speaker 1: as to why conservation programs are important both on public
Speaker 1: and private land. Mississippi is roughly ninety percent private land.
Speaker 1: If we only did focused conservation work only available public lands,
Speaker 1: then we would have really really good wildlife habitat ten
Speaker 1: percent of the state, leaving the vast majority of the
Speaker 1: rest of the state finn for itself. Personally, I want
Speaker 1: wildlife habitat anywhere I can get it. There's also voluntary
Speaker 1: public access and habitat incentive programs. These programs create public
Speaker 1: access through privately owned properties. This includes some of the
Speaker 1: walk in hunting access programs. And all of us know
Speaker 1: we need all of that we can get.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I mean all of us are doing. Hunters especially,
Speaker 4: but anglers too. When you're driving across the country wherever
Speaker 4: you're going, or even in your backyard, you're looking out
Speaker 4: the window and you're looking at the landscape and thinking about, man,
Speaker 4: that could be some really good turkey habitat, or that
Speaker 4: could really do a lot more for deer if it
Speaker 4: was X, Y and z, or whether you're thinking about
Speaker 4: it on your own property, the same thing. And this
Speaker 4: is a pretty powerful tool. These programs are a really
Speaker 4: powerful tool to do more of that kind of work.
Speaker 4: I think we get intimidated as just the average hunter
Speaker 4: and angler. And you know, I don't know all the
Speaker 4: details of that program. I don't know all the ins
Speaker 4: and outs, and so I'm not gonna you know, I
Speaker 4: won't speak up. I'm not going to get engaged in
Speaker 4: the process. But honestly, a simple phone call that says, Hey,
Speaker 4: I am a hunter, I'm an angler private lands conservation
Speaker 4: ad Conservation makes my hunting and fishing better. I care
Speaker 4: about this stuff. Can you please support it? Can you
Speaker 4: please make it happen? It doesn't have to be Hey,
Speaker 4: we need to tweak to page thirty seven US Code
Speaker 4: thirty three point. You know it doesn't. That's we can
Speaker 4: do that. I can handle that part. What we need
Speaker 4: is decision makers hearing from people in their state, in
Speaker 4: their district about why this stuff is important to them.
Speaker 1: Hey, call your representative and tell them that you care
Speaker 1: about this stuff. If we learned anything this past summer
Speaker 1: after the public land sell off attempt, it's that our
Speaker 1: voices do matter. Okay, we now have a better understanding
Speaker 1: of the farm bill, the conservation programs. I feel like
Speaker 1: we got that down. Now it's time to dig in
Speaker 1: even further and learn how we can get in on
Speaker 1: this ourselves. And for that, we're going to quickly return
Speaker 1: to the tour of the Thrash property. So like when
Speaker 1: you were going through the equip program to do the
Speaker 1: long leaf, Huh is that a pretty easy process or no?
Speaker 1: Not a easy process?
Speaker 2: Nope, I don't see how the NRCS and the people
Speaker 2: that do it keep it all together with all the paperwork.
Speaker 2: But it is a world of paperwork, you know. It
Speaker 2: wasn't It wasn't easy to me. If you were just
Speaker 2: gonna do it by yourself and you didn't have an
Speaker 2: extremely knowledgeable NRCS person helping you, the average person.
Speaker 1: Couldn't couldn't get it done.
Speaker 2: You probably could somebody, you know, younger with computer skills
Speaker 2: to research everything.
Speaker 1: You could probably get through it.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I feel like the average person is
Speaker 2: going to have to have some assistance. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: with some of these people that are out there now
Speaker 2: that are assisting landowners to get these contracts.
Speaker 3: And that's what we've done.
Speaker 2: And I've done a lot of the work myself because
Speaker 2: I started doing it before I actually had a contact
Speaker 2: and had somebody helping me.
Speaker 1: Gotcha, I'm gonna be real honest here. That's not what
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear at all.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 1: I wanted this part of the conversation to be like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: that was the easiest process I've ever been through. A
Speaker 1: kid could do it. Putting conservation on my property has
Speaker 1: never been easier. And you could do it too. Now
Speaker 1: let's tie five and go dear honey. But obviously you
Speaker 1: heard it. It didn't go that way. Josh said. It
Speaker 1: was incredibly difficult, a very difficult and painful process just
Speaker 1: to get enrolled in these conservation programs. And from my
Speaker 1: perspective of wanting to motivate myself and others into getting
Speaker 1: involved in some of this stuff, well that didn't sit
Speaker 1: well with me. But fear not, my friends, all hope
Speaker 1: is not lost. It's not lost at all. I have
Speaker 1: found a solution. It's time for yall to meet our
Speaker 1: next subject matter expert.
Speaker 5: These conservation programs are very complex, I mean, more complex
Speaker 5: than they should be. But I think I got a
Speaker 5: little bit different viewpoint in that we spent some time
Speaker 5: working for in r cs and now consult trying to
Speaker 5: help people enroll in conservation program So I've kind of
Speaker 5: seen it from both sides, and it's complex on both sides.
Speaker 5: Even if you work for in rcs, things are constantly changing,
Speaker 5: ranking process is constantly changing. But from the landowners perspective,
Speaker 5: and it would just be hard to even know where
Speaker 5: to start sometimes if you didn't have somebody helping you,
Speaker 5: and you really are at the mercy of the people
Speaker 5: that work in those offices and relying on them to
Speaker 5: make sure you get the best deal available. And I
Speaker 5: think a lot of people will just find value in
Speaker 5: having someone represent them. That's kind of our goal that
Speaker 5: Stewart Link is to take a little bit of that
Speaker 5: burden and just unknown off of their plate and help
Speaker 5: them find the right program and just kind of navigate
Speaker 5: that whole process to make sure we achieve their goals
Speaker 5: and put them in the best position to be successful
Speaker 5: and just you know, hopefully find the right program.
Speaker 1: The voice you just heard is a man named Nick Thomas.
Speaker 1: I met Nick through my good friend and mentor, Will
Speaker 1: Primo several years ago. Now, Will was going on about
Speaker 1: how Nick was just a wealth of knowledge about conservation programs,
Speaker 1: which eventually led to him founding Steward Link, a company
Speaker 1: that specializes in simplifying the conservation program enrollment process for landowners.
Speaker 5: You may have heard the story, but I go through
Speaker 5: a short version of it on how this got started.
Speaker 5: I did not have a grand vision for us to
Speaker 5: become what.
Speaker 3: We are now.
Speaker 5: You know, like you, I'm very passionate about outdoors, hunting
Speaker 5: and fishing, and I left n rcs gonna sell crop insurance,
Speaker 5: and obviously had a background of these conservation programs. I
Speaker 5: knew things were kind of underutilized. I did not appreciate
Speaker 5: how much people wanted help to get enrolled in these
Speaker 5: programs or just get the right applications in the right paperwork,
Speaker 5: or understand more about what was available. So as I
Speaker 5: was talking to people, I tell them, like, you need
Speaker 5: to be signed up for the EQUIP program or the
Speaker 5: CSP program, or you could you know, apply for this
Speaker 5: or that, whatever program it may be. And you know
Speaker 5: their initial response was, and would you help me do that?
Speaker 5: I'll pay you if you'll do that for me. And
Speaker 5: you know, light bulb went off in my head. You
Speaker 5: know this can be a side gig. I'll pay for
Speaker 5: a hunt trip. You know, my plan was to go
Speaker 5: kill a Marriam's turkey somewhere with this side business. And
Speaker 5: here we are, you know, now, almost exactly eleven years later,
Speaker 5: and you know, we got applications out there in thirty
Speaker 5: five states. You got twenty six full time employees and
Speaker 5: growing like a weeds, certainly a demand for the service.
Speaker 5: The analogy I use all the time is I compare
Speaker 5: it kind of to the irs. I mean, if you
Speaker 5: think about it, like and you may do this, but
Speaker 5: you can do your own taxes. You know, you can
Speaker 5: go online, you can file your own taxes, but most
Speaker 5: people hire a CPA, a professional that understands RS regulations
Speaker 5: policy to make sure it just don't correctly and that
Speaker 5: you're given the best deal possible. It's kind of the
Speaker 5: same thing for conservation programs again to what we were
Speaker 5: originally talking about. They're so complex. Everything has a code
Speaker 5: or an acronym, and if you don't live in that world,
Speaker 5: you don't even know what that means. So you have
Speaker 5: to kind of have all that background to really even
Speaker 5: know which programs it is that you're trying to get
Speaker 5: enrolled in to achieve your goals for your property. And
Speaker 5: that's what Stewart Link does is our kind of tagline
Speaker 5: or thing we put on our business cards. We want
Speaker 5: to make conservation work for you. That's what we want
Speaker 5: to help people do, and that starts by understanding what
Speaker 5: are the goals for your property, what are you trying
Speaker 5: to achieve, and that it's our job to go find
Speaker 5: the right program to make sure that they get signed
Speaker 5: up on time. All the eligibility paperwork and submit the
Speaker 5: highest ranking application possible. We don't want to get them
Speaker 5: into something that they don't want to do, obviously, but
Speaker 5: a lot of times they don't know everything that's available.
Speaker 5: An example may be maybe somebody's interested in planting cover
Speaker 5: crops on their farm. Well that's just one practice. You know,
Speaker 5: you could also do nutrient management, pest management, maybe there's
Speaker 5: some potential induce reduced tillage, or you know, plant some
Speaker 5: native grass or flood for waterfowl, whole whole winter water
Speaker 5: for waterfowl. Just so so many different things that are available.
Speaker 5: The more conservation you apply for a usually the higher
Speaker 5: you rank. So we try to tell them everything that's available,
Speaker 5: make suggestions, and you know, improve their odds of getting
Speaker 5: a contract as well.
Speaker 1: Do you have any sort of idea how many acres
Speaker 1: you've been able to put into conservation effort over the
Speaker 1: time that y'all have been doing this.
Speaker 5: I do. I could take a stab at it. You know,
Speaker 5: it's been in the millions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a lot, and that I don't know.
Speaker 1: That just strikes a little bit harder with me now
Speaker 1: because it would in two episodes prior talking to that
Speaker 1: waterfall biologist, he was talking about how we've lost so
Speaker 1: many acres and CRP over the years, and how the
Speaker 1: farm bill is kind of hanging in the balance right
Speaker 1: now and not knowing it's just so important that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's unfortunate, I think, and you know it's
Speaker 5: my opinion. Here we're still in the twenty eighteen farm Bill.
Speaker 5: So here we are, you know, about to roll over
Speaker 5: into twenty twenty six, and we're still operating under the
Speaker 5: twenty eighteen Farm Bill. And you know, quite frankly, what
Speaker 5: we've seen some conservation dollars take a down turn, and
Speaker 5: I hate that. I don't understand exactly why that is.
Speaker 5: I'm obviously very passionate about land and hunting and fishing
Speaker 5: as well as I know you are, Lake and a
Speaker 5: lot of people listening to this podcast are. But we
Speaker 5: got to do a better job, I think of educating
Speaker 5: people and making sure people understand the importance of conservation
Speaker 5: and just good stewardship in general. You know, Natural Resources
Speaker 5: Conservation Service is the federal agency that administers conservation programs
Speaker 5: through the Farm Bill. So what are our five natural resources?
Speaker 5: You know, soul water, air, plants, and animals, And you know,
Speaker 5: we're trying to conserve those, you know, leave those better
Speaker 5: than we found them, hopefully, And if you think about
Speaker 5: who benefits from that, well, it's not just me and you, everybody.
Speaker 5: I mean, no matter where you live in New York,
Speaker 5: in a high rise apartment somewhere or wherever, if you
Speaker 5: don't hunt and fish, if you've never bought a hunting
Speaker 5: license or anything, you depend on those five natural resources
Speaker 5: to survive. Every single person does, and we've got to
Speaker 5: protect that, and we need to do a better job
Speaker 5: I think of telling the story of that. Just the
Speaker 5: fact that the funding is trending down to incentivize people
Speaker 5: to put good conservation on the ground tells me we're
Speaker 5: not doing enough to educate the public on how important
Speaker 5: that is. I know our federal government has got a
Speaker 5: lot of things that you know, they have to consider
Speaker 5: when they figure out where tax dollars are going to
Speaker 5: be utilized, but I've got to believe protecting our natural
Speaker 5: resources needs to be a little bit higher up the list.
Speaker 5: The farming economy is not good right now. I think
Speaker 5: you could talk to farmers anywhere in the country and
Speaker 5: it wouldn't take you long to figure out that they're
Speaker 5: struggling you know, commodity markets are not good right here
Speaker 5: in the Mississippi Delta. I mean it has been tough
Speaker 5: for two or three years now, and you know it
Speaker 5: doesn't look better for twenty six and you know what
Speaker 5: a time to maybe get more conservation on the ground
Speaker 5: if there was funding. Conservation is not free. We all
Speaker 5: know that. I mean, we've got to have some way
Speaker 5: to incentivize people to put forth the effort and the
Speaker 5: time and the energy and the resources to get conservation
Speaker 5: on the ground. I mean it may take moving dirt.
Speaker 5: I mean, native grass seeds are expensive, and all these
Speaker 5: different things. To put that habitat back out there costs money.
Speaker 5: But there again, every one of us depend on that.
Speaker 5: And it doesn't matter who you are or where you live.
Speaker 5: You need those five natural resources to survive, every.
Speaker 3: One of us.
Speaker 5: And I'm going to try to call it quote here, Lake,
Speaker 5: and I hope you don't mess it up. So all
Speaker 5: the Leipold quote, it's very famous, my favorite one. It says,
Speaker 5: conservation will essentially boil down to incentivizing the private landowner
Speaker 5: to protect the public's interest. And that's really what it is. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's conservation right there, and that's you know, once everybody
Speaker 5: understands that, you know, hopefully we will realize the importance
Speaker 5: and get some funding going back in a more positive
Speaker 5: direction than what we've seen here recently. And that's one
Speaker 5: thing I'm so proud of for Steward Link and one
Speaker 5: thing that I don't know what all good Steward Link's doing,
Speaker 5: but one thing I know we have been able to
Speaker 5: do is prove their demand for conservation. Landowners are passionate
Speaker 5: about their land. They love their land, and we've all
Speaker 5: got different goals and maybe trying to produce more corn
Speaker 5: per acre, or have more ducks on the farm, or
Speaker 5: more deer or quail or whatever it may be, but
Speaker 5: they're passionate about conservation and they want to do stuff
Speaker 5: to improve their land. I mentioned earlier that we've got
Speaker 5: applicants now in thirty five states and continue to grow,
Speaker 5: and I've been in personally in most of those states
Speaker 5: and met with farmers, and I very seldom ever meet
Speaker 5: with a landowner that he doesn't sign up. I mean,
Speaker 5: he's either enrolled in a program, and a lot of
Speaker 5: times even if he's enrolled, he still wants help. Because
Speaker 5: we may be able to find a state program or
Speaker 5: private program or something else, and he just loves our
Speaker 5: mission and what we're trying to do. And we've had
Speaker 5: a very high success rate in signing people up to
Speaker 5: help them find conservation programs and just pursue good stewardship.
Speaker 5: So that's exciting. We know the demands there, we just
Speaker 5: need to find the funding for these people.
Speaker 1: I heard Ryan Callahan say this once and I've never
Speaker 1: forgotten it. Conservation is not convenient. It's not. But conservation
Speaker 1: is essential. That's a fact. And that's why I find
Speaker 1: it so encouraging to hear folks like Nick talk about
Speaker 1: it so knowledgeably and passionately, and also knowing that there's
Speaker 1: such a demand for this stuff from landowners, which is
Speaker 1: a perfect segue for this new topic. What could you
Speaker 1: be doing for conservation? Do you own property? Does your family?
Speaker 1: Do you have it enrolled in any conservation programs? Maybe
Speaker 1: it's time you looked into it. My wife and I
Speaker 1: recently bought sixty acres closed to home, and I know
Speaker 1: I'll be looking into those programs real soon. Do y'all
Speaker 1: work a lot with smaller landowners or is it pretty
Speaker 1: good spread? Or do y'all work with mostly big acreage guys?
Speaker 1: Or how does that work out?
Speaker 5: You know, we get that question a lot, especially as
Speaker 5: we move into a different state when we may have
Speaker 5: a referral partner or somebody we're working with and they'll
Speaker 5: ask us the eye deal size of a landowner, and
Speaker 5: always that the smallest contract we've had so far was
Speaker 5: one tenth of an acre, and that's ranged all the
Speaker 5: way to our biggest guys over forty thousand acres that
Speaker 5: he farmed, so everything in between. But if I just
Speaker 5: had to guess at the average size on the road
Speaker 5: crop farming Agg's side, probably you know, twenty five hundred
Speaker 5: three thousand acres if I had to guess, and timberland
Speaker 5: would be something smaller than that. But you know, we
Speaker 5: try not to turn anybody away. We want to, you know,
Speaker 5: bring value to anybody. We've added some new services. We're
Speaker 5: doing a lot of timberland work. We've got a guy
Speaker 5: we're working on right now. We've got two guys out
Speaker 5: on his farm doing some hacking squirt treatment and he's
Speaker 5: paying for it out of his pocket. You know, he's
Speaker 5: not and didn't have any contract. We got an application
Speaker 5: in he was disapproved or was not approved this past year,
Speaker 5: and I mean, he you know, had the resources and
Speaker 5: he's that passionate about improving his land. He said, look,
Speaker 5: i'll pay you guys, he's come to do it myself.
Speaker 5: I won't happen to that out there. So it's so
Speaker 5: fun to work with guys like that and just have
Speaker 5: a service to be able to help them get things
Speaker 5: done that otherwise they wouldn't be able to do.
Speaker 1: So part of the reason I asked that is selfishly
Speaker 1: because I just bought sixty acres and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I wonder how.
Speaker 5: I could deal with this. Look, we'd love to help you.
Speaker 5: We'll get the Stewardlink app downloaded. We'll get you going, man,
Speaker 5: get you a forestry management plan. That's one thing that
Speaker 5: is really important on the forestry side. It really needs
Speaker 5: to all start with a good forestry management plan. I mean,
Speaker 5: you've got to establish what's out there? Okay, what's the
Speaker 5: current you know, density, what species have we got out there?
Speaker 5: Is some different ages, what are the different stands? You know,
Speaker 5: what are our goals? How we're going to treat it,
Speaker 5: to improve it, to make it better? And that just
Speaker 5: helps us make good decisions. So, and we've got technical
Speaker 5: service providers and like I said, foresters that are certified
Speaker 5: to do those things for n r CS and help
Speaker 5: get a good plan in there that that hopefully makes
Speaker 5: n rcs's job better. I mean, that's one thing that
Speaker 5: that we talk to our team about every day is
Speaker 5: trying to find ways to work better within RCS. Now,
Speaker 5: sometimes I can't tell if we're making progress or going
Speaker 5: backwards in that, but our effort from Stuart Link is
Speaker 5: to get better at it and we want to do that.
Speaker 5: We're going to continue to do that. The goal from
Speaker 5: everybody associated should be to get conservation on the ground,
Speaker 5: and however we can make that more streamlined an easier
Speaker 5: process for the applicant, the private landowner, the farmer, the individual,
Speaker 5: if you will, who's going to be putting that conservation
Speaker 5: on the ground. We should be trying to figure out
Speaker 5: how to make their experience as easy as possible and
Speaker 5: as pleasant as possible. Customer service, if you will. But
Speaker 5: la you're sixty acres, you can go to the NRCS
Speaker 5: office FSA office and sign up on your own. Anybody can.
Speaker 5: That office is their public ass access. I mean, it's
Speaker 5: a public service, so anybody can go in. But yet
Speaker 5: here we are applications in thirty five states, and I
Speaker 5: would venture to say that over ninety percent of the
Speaker 5: people we talk to sign up. So that pretty clearly
Speaker 5: says that there's a demand for somebody to use a
Speaker 5: technical service provider or a consultant if you will, to
Speaker 5: help them navigate that process. So we need to, you know,
Speaker 5: in my opinion, just get over that a little bit
Speaker 5: and let's figure out how to help people and work
Speaker 5: together on this and do it for the right reasons,
Speaker 5: and let's conserve our natural resources.
Speaker 3: That's what we need to be focused on.
Speaker 1: You know it. You know, it reminds me of and
Speaker 1: this will be I think this will draw some parallels
Speaker 1: because the folks that listen, I know they'll be able
Speaker 1: to relate with this one. There are services on extive
Speaker 1: works of them like hunting fuls. One of them like
Speaker 1: hunting tag services. Anybody like I can go and apply
Speaker 1: for a help tag in Arizona or by a preference
Speaker 1: point in Iowa. Do you know how many years it's
Speaker 1: almost embarrassing, you know how many years I would realize that,
Speaker 1: oh I missed the deadline and I didn't get to
Speaker 1: get my preference point.
Speaker 5: That is a perfect comparison. Yeah, Like, I love to
Speaker 5: hunt as much as anybody I know. I'm passionate about
Speaker 5: it and done it my whole life and just can't
Speaker 5: imagine it any other way. I was at the Congressional
Speaker 5: Sportsman's Foundation summit last week, and I was visiting with
Speaker 5: a friend, and one of the things the speaker said
Speaker 5: was that about four percent of the population hunts. And
Speaker 5: maybe that's true. I don't know what the percentage is,
Speaker 5: But if that's true, how fortunate am I that I'm
Speaker 5: in that four percent? Because I cannot imagine life any
Speaker 5: other way. Pretty Much everything I do in my free
Speaker 5: time or my enjoyment is you know, killing animal is
Speaker 5: such a small part of it now for me. But
Speaker 5: I mean I'll be out here in July, I working
Speaker 5: on a duck field or a duck hole, or a
Speaker 5: duck blind, or hacking squirting trees. I mean, I'll have
Speaker 5: my ten year old son out here, my daughter, my wife,
Speaker 5: I mean the whole family. We're out here hacking in square.
Speaker 5: I mean we had blue dye over everybody. You should
Speaker 5: see some of the pictures.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've been distracted this entire conversation because I keep
Speaker 1: catching ducks in the window here, oh, landing out there, and.
Speaker 5: We've been so fortunate to have a camp here, you know,
Speaker 5: and by design because I want to. I want to
Speaker 5: be able to sit here and see the ducks going
Speaker 5: in in the evenings. And it's cut back on my
Speaker 5: duck hunting because i like to sit here and watch them,
Speaker 5: and I've just got so many memories tied to that.
Speaker 3: Just so so fortunate to.
Speaker 5: Be in that four percent that hunt, because man, I
Speaker 5: just I don't know what I'd do if I hadn't
Speaker 5: grown up that way.
Speaker 3: I had no idea what I'd be doing right now.
Speaker 1: He really was distracted, you know, trying to focus on
Speaker 1: the interview, but there's steadily Mallard streaking across the range
Speaker 1: sunset sky and contently landing just right there in view.
Speaker 1: But at the same time it was kind of a
Speaker 1: perfect testament to a guy like and what he cares
Speaker 1: about those ducks are there because he takes care of
Speaker 1: his place. And that's conservation, my friends. I want to
Speaker 1: round this conversation off by going over some practical steps
Speaker 1: on how you or really anybody could put some of
Speaker 1: this conservation work in place.
Speaker 5: My advice to those people into everybody is understand for
Speaker 5: conservation programs, it's not likely that anything is going to
Speaker 5: happen fast. All of the federal programs, if you will.
Speaker 5: In most conservation programs, you know, go through an annual cycle.
Speaker 5: There's an application period, a ranking period, a funding period,
Speaker 5: and there's a lot of applications with a few people
Speaker 5: working on it. So it's a slow process. But kind
Speaker 5: of just engage it with the mindset that this may
Speaker 5: take a while. It may take a year, two years,
Speaker 5: it may take three years.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: We just got a guy funded this year for a
Speaker 5: four hundred thousand dollars contract that this is the fifth
Speaker 5: year he's been with us. But I would advise for
Speaker 5: people to let's go in it with the mindset it
Speaker 5: may take some time, and let's formulate a plan. Let's
Speaker 5: get a forester out to the property if it's timberland,
Speaker 5: and let's go ahead and get a forestry management plan,
Speaker 5: Let's get a wildlife management plan, and let's decide from
Speaker 5: a whole farm perspective, what can we do to make
Speaker 5: it better to achieve your goals. Let's look at what
Speaker 5: it would cost to maybe do a timber thinning, or
Speaker 5: what you would get out of the timber cells, or
Speaker 5: maybe if you got into a conservation program, what it
Speaker 5: would pay to allow you to do that, whatever it
Speaker 5: may be for that specific property. Let's come up with
Speaker 5: a good plan and rely on Steward Linker. I tell
Speaker 5: people all the time, you know, if you don't feel
Speaker 5: comfortable using US, I still want you to go sign
Speaker 5: up for the program. Programs are there, they're available to
Speaker 5: the public. Everybody should be signed up participating if they're
Speaker 5: interested in conservation at least pursuing the program. And you know,
Speaker 5: go up there and talk to nrcs and try to
Speaker 5: build a relationship with them and get going down that road.
Speaker 5: And if you come back later if you need some help,
Speaker 5: we'll still be here and happy to help you. And
Speaker 5: we've had a few people do that, and a lot
Speaker 5: of times they do come back and want help, and
Speaker 5: of course we're happy to do that. But I think
Speaker 5: that's the best advice I could give is just to
Speaker 5: find some professionals, some wildlife biologists, foresters. Let's form a
Speaker 5: good plan and let's get some applications going. And there's
Speaker 5: a lot of paperwork associated with those applications, and it
Speaker 5: is timely.
Speaker 3: You know, you have to have some help.
Speaker 1: If someone wanted to go, you know, if they happen
Speaker 1: to be in one of the states that that y'all
Speaker 1: are in, Like, how would they what's the best way
Speaker 1: to get in touch with the off.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so a couple of ways. You can go to
Speaker 5: our website at stewardlink dot com. You know that there's
Speaker 5: a button on there to contact us and it'll send
Speaker 5: us a short email and someone from the office will
Speaker 5: reach out to you within twenty four hours of business
Speaker 5: days anyway, or you can just give us a call
Speaker 5: or our office number is six six two five three
Speaker 5: five zero two three three, And I mean we're there
Speaker 5: Monday through Friday, a lot of times on Saturday or
Speaker 5: sometimes maybe even Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 3: But we'll be there and be glad to help you.
Speaker 5: And like I said, we've got employees scattered around the
Speaker 5: country and we'll get you assigned to the person closest
Speaker 5: to you. And as we build applications and hopefully get contrasts,
Speaker 5: I mean, we look to add more employees. So you
Speaker 5: know what, we're hiring people steadily and continuing to grow.
Speaker 5: So you know, we've got two employees in Montana now
Speaker 5: and Montana Montana, come all the way over in the
Speaker 5: northeast to New York. I believe we've got an application.
Speaker 5: We're talking to a couple of people in New Hampshire,
Speaker 5: so we may get a little bit further to the northeast,
Speaker 5: and then of course all the way down into Florida,
Speaker 5: and I guess southwest we go as far as Texas,
Speaker 5: so I don't think we have anything further west of Texas,
Speaker 5: kind of on the southern southwestern part of the country, so.
Speaker 3: Not yet.
Speaker 5: I mean, we'll be in all fifty states for it's over.
Speaker 5: So that's the goal of ours, and I think one
Speaker 5: that will obtain.
Speaker 1: I'm going to share with you all my New Year's resolution.
Speaker 1: Like I told Joe earlier, my wife and I recently
Speaker 1: bought sixty acres and I could not be more excited
Speaker 1: about it. My resolution is to have that place enrolled
Speaker 1: in some sort of conservation program within this calendar year.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's possible or not yet, but
Speaker 1: I promise you we're gonna make some progress, and I
Speaker 1: encourage all of you to do the same if you're
Speaker 1: able at least look into it. I want to thank
Speaker 1: all of you for listening to Backwoods University, as well
Speaker 1: as Bear Grease and this country life. I can't tell
Speaker 1: y'all how much it means to all of us over here.
Speaker 1: If you like this episode, share it with a friend,
Speaker 1: or share it with someone that you know maybe has
Speaker 1: some land that they want to put into some conservation programs,
Speaker 1: and stick around because it's a new year and we're
Speaker 1: all fully energized over here. There's a whole lot more
Speaker 1: on the way.