Georgia - Livestock, Water Quality

The four west-central Georgia counties for which Carmen Westerfield is district conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)--Lamar, Upson, Monroe, and Pike--drain partly into the Atlantic Ocean (the Ocmulgee River joins the Altamaha and reaches the Atlantic near St. Simons Island) and partly into the Gulf of Mexico (via the Flint and Appalachicola rivers). Water quality--and the role of farms in protecting or harming it--takes much of Westerfield's time and attention. Watersheds in the area provide drinking water for cities such as Barnesville, Forsyth, and Macon. She has worked with a number of farmers to install practices designed to reduce farm runoff--fencing to exclude or regulate cattle access to streams and ponds, providing alternative watering systems, planting riparian zones, and installing filter strips.

One of those farmers, Hugh Cromer, farms in the Tobesofkee sub-watershed of the Ocmulgee. Cromer has enrolled about six acres in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to protect about 300 feet on each side of a creek that splits his property. The cows have been fenced out of the creek; a lane from pastures on both sides allows access to a water trough fed by a pipe from the farm pond above. "The real benefit," Cromer says, "is keeping the cows out of the ponds. Because they aren't drinking from the ponds, they don't cave off the banks."

Cromer has been farming his 411 acres for nearly half a century. Until 10 years ago it was a dairy farm, but now he has a mixed herd of beef cattle. He says, "I'd rather have goats to keep the place cleaned up, but they won't stay in barbed wire." He likes the look of things now and plans to fence and restore another pond where his cattle have broken down the banks. "I need to do it."

Another farm keeping cattle from the water is Honeywood Farm in Barnesville, which won the 1997 regional award for environmental stewardship from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The 970-acre place is "pretty big by Georgia standards," says manager Clay Allen, who runs a 300-head cow-calf operation. He uses 380 acres for intensive rotational grazing, raises 100 acres of hay, and another 400 acres is devoted to timber management and wildlife. A creek flows through Honeywood, but Allen says, "it's in wetlands, and we don't have any cattle within 100 to 200 yards of the stream in that area. It's fenced out and we leave it to the wildlife."

Allen says that many of the Honeywood conservation projects are for water management. Of the six ponds on the place, "We have half the ponds fixed and hope to get the others fixed in the next year or two. Cattle like to loaf in the ponds, but it's not good for either them or the ponds." In 1998 he installed 50-gallon water troughs behind the pond dams "and used gravity flow to keep the tanks full at all times." On one big ditch "where cattle had gone in 'waist deep' for years, we built a pond and fenced it with 50 yards of grass on each side. We put in some pond ramps for cattle to go down to the pond to drink. We used geotextile fabric and put in 6 to 8 inches of gravel; so, they walk in the pond to get water, but don't muddy it or stir it up." Allen has fenced and created grass buffer strips between his farm ponds and the rotational grazing paddocks. Westerfield believes restricting cattle access to water is critical.

There are benefits beyond water quality improvements and erosion reduction, Allen says. "With the rotational grazing system, we move the herd after three or four days from one paddock to another. Your grasses do so much better. You give them some rest, give them time to come out and re-seed, and it doesn't take quite as much fertilization. The cattle get used to it and know what's going on. They're a lot easier to handle and I think they're healthier." He also says he can run one cow and calf per acre, whereas "normally it takes two." In the eight paddocks in one 60-acre pasture, Allen runs just over 50 cows--rotating them weekly or every few days, depending on the season and the grasses. And farm profits have increased--even after the start-up investment. "Carmen has done a lot of work with us on rotational grazing," he says. Westerfield says Allen is an excellent ally and Honeywood Farm a model. "He had the first riparian buffer in this area, and he has spoken so favorably about the results that I've had a lot of farmers contact me about restricting their own cattle."

Although most of her work is with individual farmers on their own places, Westerfield also has her eye on whole watersheds. She hopes to use the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), CRP, and other programs to address particular problems in the Tobesofkee Creek watershed with its 39,062 acres of agricultural land. One of her supporters is Mayor James Matthews, Jr. of Barnesville, who also serves as the Executive Director of the Georgia Rural Water Association. He says, "The threat of water pollution is a reality as population in our area increases. The City of Barnesville recognizes this and is committed to being a steward of good water quality." Westerfield sees a lot of environmental benefits deriving from increased use of buffers, restrictive fencing, alternative water systems, and other conservation practices on the farms in the Tobesofkee and the other watersheds in her area. "It's slow going, but people are coming forward."

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