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REAP Farm Tax Credit Program Receives $1 Million a Day in Applications

Stream Buffers

During the first 10 days of the application period for the Resource Enhancement and Protection Act (REAP) farm conservation tax credits, the State Conservation Commission received over $10 million in applications.

"Farmers are stepping up and taking advantage of the cost effective options available to meet their Chesapeake Bay obligations," said Cathleen Curran Myers, DEP Deputy Secretary for Water Management. "In the past few years, Pennsylvania's farmers made our Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program the largest in the country. Now they are exhibiting their willingness to invest in conservation measures and clean water as evidenced by the $10 million in REAP requests received to date."

With the REAP applications containing an average 50 percent tax credit, this represents not only an additional $10 million in state support for farm conservation projects, but an estimated matching investment of $10 million in farmer dollars for conservation.

According to Myers, Pennsylvania's farmers are meeting the mandatory nutrient reduction targets they are required to make under the state's Chesapeake Bay Compliance Plan.

"Pennsylvania's Chesapeake Bay Compliance Plan requires 25 million pounds of nutrient reduction from our farmlands—nearly five times the reduction required of our sewage treatment plants," said Myers. "Our farmers are rising to that challenge, laying claim to more than half of all the nitrogen reductions made by farmers anywhere in the multi-state watershed thus far."

Agriculture, collectively, is the largest contributor of nutrients to Pennsylvania's bay tributaries, according to Myers. The more than 40,000 Pennsylvania farms located within the watershed discharge 46 percent of the nitrogen and 58 percent of the phosphorus into these waterways and, consequently, farmers today face more stringent water quality requirements.

The state's laws are requiring best management practices on larger Pennsylvania farms. Practices mandated for farms considered concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, include a thorough process to obtain a permit and comply with regulations more stringent than the federal requirements.

Stronger regulations have expanded the number of CAFOs from 165 to 350. CAFOs are required to obtain permits that reduce nutrients and sediment flowing into local waterways.

New manure requirements have added phosphorus to the nitrate regulations included as part of nutrient management plans. The new regulations also establish vegetative buffers or setbacks along the edge of streams, while farms that import manure must now meet the same requirements as the farm that produces the manure.

With these sweeping changes, more than 5,000 farms will have full nutrient management plans, as well as stream setbacks or buffers, increasing the number of highly regulated farms in Pennsylvania by 600 percent.

Larger farms with animals must now meet standards for constructing and using manure storage structures, and must obtain a state permit when their structures reach a minimum level of storage capacity. Additionally, every farm in the state is required to develop and implement erosion and sedimentation plans that meet established minimum standards for control of soil and nutrient runoff.

For more information, visit Pennsylvania's Chesapeake Bay Program webpage or the REAP webpage.

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