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Written by Rebecca Champagne, PhD, OFRF Conservation Scientist

OFRF is currently working with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) on a cooperative agreement to help build institutional knowledge of NRCS staff and equip them to better support the unique needs of organic and transitioning-to-organic farmers across the country. As part of this work, we are helping tell the stories of organic farmers and their experiences working with NRCS. We hope other farmers can use this information to learn more about NRCS and feel inspired to pursue conservation programs for their farm. For more information regarding our cooperative agreement with the agency, please reach out to Rebecca Champagne, OFRF Conservation Scientist, at rebecca@ofrf.org.

Meet April Joy Farm

April Joy Farm is a 24-acre certified-organic farm located in Ridgefield, Washington, owned and operated by April and Brad Thatcher since 2006. The Thatchers run a diversified crop and livestock operation, growing organic vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers, as well as layer hens, cows, and goats. Some of the vegetables they grow include beets, cabbage, kale, greens, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, and squash, among many others. The fruit they grow includes apples, plums, pears, and table grapes. April Joy Farm was also the first Pacific Northwest pork producer to receive the Animal Welfare approval, and while they no longer raise pigs, the farm’s logo was inspired by their former farm pig, Rosie.

“I have dedicated myself to caring for our precious soil and restoring relationships between agricultural lands and humans. I love farming because the work is fascinating, challenging, inspiring, and—let’s be real—I love to eat,” said April.

Over the last two decades, April Joy Farm has sold its produce to restaurants, grocers, and through a CSA. Currently, the majority of the farm products are distributed through Farm to Heart, April’s food justice initiative. 

Source: April Joy Farm

“Farm to Heart is a matchmaker – we connect farmers, families, and community partners to reduce food waste and create an equitable food system,” April described. The initiative buys from 22 area farms to make local, organic food available to families experiencing hunger while also paying farmers fairly.

April Joy Farm achieved USDA organic certification in 2007, just one year after the farm started. April wanted to become certified as soon as possible, saying, “I considered organic the baseline if I was going to farm. I wanted to be a responsible steward of the land. Yes, there were market value considerations, but that was secondary.”

When April started the farm, she found many opportunities to create a more functional operation, such as soil compaction, broken drainage tiles, and restoration of previously logged land. “I had the time, energy, and passion to do the work, but needed the financial support and technical assistance,” April said. This drive to be a steward of the land led April to pursue assistance from NRCS, whose various programs and technical assistance can help farmers implement conservation practices to improve their crops and land while conserving natural resources.

Working with NRCS

Source: April Joy Farm

April was “reading anything she could get her hands on” when she started farming, and came across NRCS and its conservation programs. She admits she was initially naive about how NRCS worked, including the agency’s processes and terminology, but was determined to do more conservation on the farm. She has since had 10 contracts with NRCS, starting back in 2009. She has utilized both the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), with multiple practice standards and enhancements under each contract to help meet her conservation goals. 

“CSP has been valuable because we were already using baseline conservation methods, and now we can go above and beyond that.”

Under her current CSP contract, April is utilizing several conservation practices, including native hedgerows to provide a buffer against a neighboring conventional farm’s spray drift, fencing for rotational livestock grazing, cover crop mixes to build soil health, and a riparian forest buffer for low swale planting that filters and improves water quality and provides habitat for beneficial organisms.

April has seen many benefits from implementing various practices under her NRCS conservation contracts. The riparian forest buffer has resulted in stacked benefits, including habitat for native songbirds and beneficial insects, and shade that cools livestock in the summer. The fencing not only helps with rotational grazing, but also keeps deer out of the crops. She’s also gained an understanding of different native plant species and uses that knowledge to think about other places or situations across the farm that could benefit from them.

April credits the local NRCS staff she’s worked with over the years for much of the success of her involvement with the agency and her conservation contracts. “They all went above and beyond to support me and help me through the process, helping me fill out forms, visiting my farm, and clarifying different parts of the process,” she said. She admitted that the staff sometimes had learning curves about diversified organic operations and organic requirements, but gave them a lot of credit — “They wanted to learn and help me be successful. They met me where I was at.”

She’s currently working with Lisa Schuchman, Resource Conservationist for NRCS in Washington. When talking about her approach to working with organic farmers, Lisa said, “My standpoint and mode of planning is really listening to the farmer’s goals for their operation, thinking about what NRCS has to offer, and how to fit them together. I try to offer good customer service, be flexible, and follow the farmer’s lead where I can.”

Lessons and Recommendations

Even though April is now much more familiar with NRCS and the agency’s processes, she’s not sure she’d still be pursuing these conservation programs if it weren’t for the staff she’s worked with, due to the many parts of the application process and the fact that it can be difficult to fit some organic practices into existing NRCS Conservation Practice Standards (CPS). Crop rotations are complex and diversified at April Joy Farm. Cover crops are often overseeded or interseeded, and high seeding rates for multi-species mixes are used (for maximum biomass production). April found that her cover cropping practices sometimes do not match the specs for the cover crop practice standard. For example, she found that the forms for cover cropping were set up for monocultures or simpler rotations. “I’m using an 8-12-species cover crop mix, and not following a specific timeline of cover crop / disk / cash crop. I’m using methods like overseeding and interseeding, and the documentation was not set up for these more complex methods and smaller scale,” April said. This is why it was so important for Lisa to meet April where she was at with the scale and diversity of her farm and make the contracts work for her. Having an NRCS agent familiar with the complexities of April’s system has been helpful for April to utilize the current practice standard for cover cropping.

Source: April Joy Farm

April’s experiences with NRCS also taught her a lot about documentation. Each CPS has specific documentation needed to show NRCS that you’ve fulfilled the requirements of the practice standard, and this documentation may or may not be the same as the recordkeeping already required for organic certification. Understanding these documentation requirements before getting started with a practice standard, and seeing if your organic certification recordkeeping will fulfill it, is a good practice to successfully implement your NRCS contracts.

The lessons that April has learned offer valuable insights for other farmers interested in participating in federal support programs, and also highlight opportunities for NRCS to further enhance its processes and staff training. For farmers, aligning federal conservation programs with an organic production system can be a significant challenge. Organic farmers can benefit from more specialized support in meeting certification standards and finding service providers with organic expertise who can help them succeed. Through OFRF’s cooperative agreement with NRCS, we aim to work with the agency to streamline these connections and get more organic and transitioning-to-organic farmers involved in conservation programs that both reward them for practices they are likely already doing and build their operation’s resiliency even further. 

Lisa offered the following advice to other NRCS staff who may be new to working with organic producers: 

“They’re farmers too—I don’t see them any differently myself. They are growing food and want to take care of the land. Some approaches are non-traditional, but the goals are the same. NRCS is here to help people help the land. Treat them like any other farmer.”

When asked what she’d say to organic farmers who are considering pursuing NRCS conservation programs for the first time, April offered the following advice: 

“Do your homework ahead of time, and understand the process and costs involved. Make sure your contracts are aligned with your business and production model.”

She also recommends having a solid recordkeeping system and flagging for NRCS anything in your contracts that won’t work for an organic operation. April also stressed the importance of building relationships — “You really need to find the right partner at NRCS. Someone who is willing to go the extra mile and make it an effective partnership.”

Interested in NRCS Programs? Here Are a Few Helpful Resources

Source: April Joy Farm

If you’re a farmer considering applying for NRCS programs, here are some helpful links and tips to get started:

• Explore NRCS programs & initiatives: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs-initiatives 
• Connect with your local NRCS office to receive free technical assistance or to start developing a conservation plan: nrcs.usda.gov/contact
• Know your eligibility. Farmers who are classified as beginning, limited-resource, socially disadvantaged, or veterans may qualify for higher reimbursement rates and advance payments.
• Ask about the advance payment option early. This can be a game-changer for small farms with limited cash flow.

Download OFRF’s EQIP flyer and CSP flyer for more information on the federal funding programs, including eligibility and application details. Both resources are available in English and Spanish.

This case study was produced with support from the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS) under Cooperative Agreement No. FBC24CPT0013867. The contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of USDA-NRCS.

All photos credit April Joy Farm.