Development and implementation of an equine environmental stewardship program

Development and implementation of an equine environmental stewardship program

Summary

The state of Pennsylvania has adopted a proposal and work plan for all Cooperative Extension personal that will be used for future program implementation. One of 19 Proposed Pennsylvania Statewide Programs is the “PA Equine Environmental Stewardship Project”. The adoption of this “Natural Plans of Work” for Penn State Cooperative Extension will help in conducting our SEAR project. This state team of seven people (headed by Donna Foulk and Ann Swinker) will help the SARE investigators in reaching our audience with this needed educational programming. The goal of the Equine Environmental Stewardship Program is to reach 25 demonstration horse farms to participate in the SARE grant project. This Pa Extension work group with the SARE project team will help to provide horse owners, farm managers/owners and equine and agricultural industry service providers with the knowledge and skills necessary to adopt sustainable and environmentally sound farm management practices.

The SARE team is conducting (Dec. 9, 2010 released) an “Equine Environmental Stewardship Farm Managers” online survey. The survey will run through January 2011, the survey was sent out to a participants list representing over 2,000 emails addresses of equine farm managers. The survey is being conducted by Penn State University. The multi-state data will be used to comparison equine best management practices from several Eastern states.

Because equine owners have not been traditionally assisted by Conservation Districts or NRCS, they have not been eligible for cost-share funding in the past. Also, since equine operations have not been regulated directly in the past, they may not have been a priority for assistance. The project team is willing to meet the challenge of introducing the equine industry to standards that will help them be in compliance with state regulations.

On November 12-13, 2010 in Harrisburg, PA, The SARE team conducted a session at the Pennsylvania Equine Council’s Annual meeting for their board of directors and membership (55 attendances) on the new state manure regulations and how the horse industry must comply. In addition we had a display explaining the “PA Equine Environmental Stewardship SARE Project”. The PA Equine Council is willing to help the research team with locating horse farms that can be participants in this project.

To date we have recruited 7 farms that are willing to participate in the PA Equine Environmental Stewardship SARE project.

• PA Equine Coucnil Annual Meeting showing the display set up at the November 2010 meeting.
• Pasture evaluation disk and flag. Evaluation tool.

Objectives/Performance Targets

1. A major goal of the project is to develop and offer the Equine Environmental Stewardship Short Course. The course, which will be offered at various locations throughout the region.

   Development of a “user friendly” model to quantitatively evaluate pasture composition and canopy cover. Development of a pasture condition scoring system to more accurately reflect conditions in equine pastures. Pasture evaluation disk tools distributed to 180 participants at Ag Progress Days and workshops.

   Identification of farm managers as project cooperators in order to evaluate specific, pre-determined practices adopted, evaluate pasture conditions before and after implementation and serve as a host for on-farm demonstrations.

   Development of a diverse educational outreach effort which includes: offering the standard short course at several locations in PA, NJ, VA,and NY.

Accomplishments/Milestones

• Dec. 9, 2010, released an “Equine Environmental Stewardship Farm Managers” online survey to 2,000 horse farm managers.

  Recruited 7 farms that are willing to participate in the PA Equine Environmental Stewardship SARE project.

  On November 12-13, 2010 in Harrisburg, PA, conducted an educational session at the Pennsylvania Equine Council’s Annual Meeting (55 attendances) on the new state manure regulations and horse industry BMP.

  Development of a “user friendly” model to quantitatively evaluate pasture composition and canopy cover. See attached

• Pasture walk and using pasture evaluation tools.
• Pasture Condition Score Sheet- for equine pastures.
• Equine Farm Manager’s Survey Questions (Example)

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

The PA Equine Council is willing to help the research team with locating horse farms that can be participants in this project.

Educational session conducted by the team in 2010 were: 2010 Ag Progress Days, Rock Springs,PA (participants 47), Manure Expo 2010 Rock Springs, PA (participants 90), PA Equine Council, Harrisburg, PA (participants 55), Fall 2010 Equine Environmental Stewardship Program for Middletown, NY,(participants 104).

August 2010, Penn State University, Manure du Jour Webinar, participants 48)educational programming to train agency staff (train the trainers).

December 2010, How Green is Your Farm? Webcast hosted by My Horse University and eXtension (National eXtension webcast (participation 35).

Collaborators: