Original Source: Michigan Farm News (Mitch Galloway, Farm News Media)
“That’s what aggravates me,” said Fred Krebs, a Livingston County Farm Bureau member. “All we’re doing is making our farms more efficient by cleaning them up and taking these little spots out. It’s just so much easier to tile them and clean them up, and then you just go straight through, and you’re done.” | Courtesy photos
Livingston County farmer Fred Krebs tiled an open private drain at 50-foot spacings to increase efficiencies and yields for his cash crops.
It was tiling that would also make it easier to work fields with wide equipment, Krebs said. Tiling that would clean up the property and make it more profitable, Krebs continued.
However, around 2012, the federal government told Krebs he was out of compliance with wetland protection provisions in the farm bill, commonly referred to as “Swampbuster,” and that he could no longer receive federal crop funding until he restored the 1.6 acres of wetlands.
Krebs eventually spent about $50,000 on engineering and construction projects to remove 4 acres and build the wetland.
“That’s what aggravates me,” he told Michigan Farm News. “All we’re doing is making our farms more efficient by cleaning them up and taking these little spots out. It’s just so much easier to tile them and clean them up, and then you just go straight through, and you’re done.
“The spots we cleaned up that were out of compliance, once we got them tiled, we’re getting 300-bushels of corn off it. Before, we got zero.”
An old problem for Krebs is not a new one for Michigan farmers, sources tell Michigan Farm News.
It’s also why the USDA created the Wetland Mitigation Banking Program (WMBP) — so agricultural producers could purchase credits from wetland mitigation banks to compensate for lost wetlands. These mitigation banks, in turn, allow the landowner to retain ownership and use of property, while a conservation easement protects the wetlands from incompatible degrading activities, like clearing trees, digging drainage ditches, or tiling the easement for farming.
Krebs is one such customer.
He ran into another wetland compliance issue in 2014, which he resolved in 2021 after he purchased two-thirds of a credit for $28,000 from Wetland Mitigation. According to Bob Swick, sales manager of the Caro-based business, the credits help producers like Krebs avoid violation turmoil.
“There are lots of producers out there with violations, and they don’t know how to fix them,” Swick told Michigan Farm News. “Some of their monies are being upheld. I’ve actually had clients or producers who have had their social security (payments) stopped. We have one issue up in the Thumb where I think the producer is even going to lose his farm. What we see is that the producers aren’t aware of what’s happening and how to fix their problems.”
Swick is trying to change that.
Currently, there are three types of solutions: restored, enhanced, and created, each varying in costs and conversions. Typically, restored wetlands are easier and less expensive, while enhanced wetlands delve into the depth and duration of ponding. Created wetlands are developed on a landscape that did not originally support a wetland. More engineering designs and structures are needed in these cases, which means additional costs. (Learn more about wetland structures here.)
For Swick, who works with USDA’s NRCS to help producers compensate for wetland impacts, the size and scope of the wetland restoration, creation, or enhancement activities determine the number of credits available for sale.
He said that once producers purchase a credit from him, they are done dealing with the red tape and confusion and are back in compliance to do what they do best — produce.
It’s one of the reasons why more mitigation banks are coming online in the state. Just last November, USDA announced it would invest $7 million into eight projects to support the development of wetland mitigation banks for agricultural producers through WMBP, including a $1 million grant to Wetland Mitigation. Wetland Mitigation will provide 250 credits to “agricultural producers to mitigate wetland conversions and maintain compliance with Farm Bill wetland provisions” while “restoring a minimum of 16 wetlands in Michigan’s southern Lower Peninsula.”
Industry leaders say wetland mitigation banks like Swick’s help farmers get back into compliance, both to avoid repayment of federal benefits and keep access to crop insurance, disaster and relief payments, federal loans, and conservation programs.
In data provided to Michigan Farm News, USDA reported an increase in the number of wetland mitigation agreements utilizing wetland bank credits, including two wetland mitigation bank sponsors in Michigan who have received USDA funding and administered 14 mitigation banks, up from three in 2020. (See a complete service area of the wetland banks here.)
“You’ve got to have a plan,” Swick said. “That’s a common misconception that a lot of these producers have — they think they can just plant a few trees and they’re all done. But once you do that, you put your land into a conservation easement, so it’s out of production and the outlined criteria must be maintained into perpetuity.”
That includes hydrology, invasive species control, correct native wetland plant and tree community, added Swick, and if the criteria are not achieved and maintained, you are back in violation.
According to former USDA NRCS Chief Terry Cosby, landowners play a vital role in restoring and protecting wetland health.
“Through wetland mitigation banking we can help them not only meet USDA requirements but also improve the health of wetlands and boost wetland benefits, like storing floodwaters, filtering pollutants and providing critical habitat to wildlife,” he said before retiring in November.
Yet, Krebs said there are still added costs, processes and work done by the producer that cannot be ignored in these situations.
“We can’t be efficient on our land as we should be, and that’s all we’re trying to do,” said Krebs, who noted some of his farmer friends aren’t enrolling in any government crop programs because of the costs associated with on-farm wetland compliance.
“It seems like you’re always bucking the government.”