Farm Compost Use Expanding Nationally
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The compost industry has long been perplexed at the lack of inclusion of compost use on farms for soil health -- similar to sustainable agriculture practices such as crop rotation and no-till farming which receive federal incentive payments. We would like to alert our members that an opportunity to support changing this situation is on the horizon.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), part of the US Department of Agriculture, will be posting a comment period in the Federal Register this spring for comment on Rule 336 (see draft here). This is an evolution of Interim Practice 808, which has been in place for several years in California and Colorado, and was adopted in the past year by an additional 18 states (CT, DC, DE, HI, ID, IL, IN, MA, MD, MI, MT, NE, NH, NJ, NY OR, UT and VT).
The standard allows farmers to apply for reimbursement under the EQIP program for use of compost for carbon sequestration. The 47 practices are aimed at addressing issues such as soil health-aggregation ability, soil degradation.
Stay tuned! USCC will be deploying our new Grassroots Action Center for comments in support of this practice.
