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Buffers: How They Can Work For You

USDA working in partnership with your local County Conservation District

What is a Buffer?

A buffer consists of a narrow strip of vegetation, which protects, or "buffers" an area from different forms of pollutants such as water or wind borne sediment, pesticides, and excess nutrients.

What can buffers do for me?

• Protect valuable resources on your land.
• In many cases offer you rental payments for the land being used as a buffer.
• Some practices, such as filter strips, windbreaks, and grassed waterways carry 20% incentive rates.
• Showcase your commitment to conservation to the non-ag sector!
• Provide turn strips or headlands.
• Provide isolation areas in crops such as seed corn or specialty crops.

Thoughts on conservation and buffers...

"When the land does well for its owner, and the owner does well by his land - when both end up better by reason of their partnership - then we have conservation."—Aldo Leopold

"Some of the most memorable days of my childhood were of wading in a cool shaded stream, catching fish at the fishing hole and sharing carefree times with my best friend...my dog.

Riparian buffers offer the chance to return the stream to the way it was in my childhood so another child and his dog can have those carefree times too." —Anonymous Michigan Farmer

[Image—Field border, a buffer practice.]

Types of Buffers

Filter Strip: An area of vegetation designed to trap sediment and pollutants and protect water resources.

Windbreak: Row (s) of trees to reduce erosion caused by wind.

Grassed Waterway: A vegetated channel that carries water off the land without erosive action.

Riparian Buffer: A series of trees, shrubs, and grasses that line a watercourse to protect it.

Benefits of Buffers

• Reduces erosion from wind and water.
• Improves water quality by filtering sediment, pesticides, and nutrients before they enter water.
• Reduces maintenance of drainage ditches and natural waterways.
• Work well for Ag-Waste spreading setbacks.
• Can improve irrigation efficiency.
• Can be helpful in squaring up odd shaped fields.
• Provides habitat for pheasants, quail and other birds.
• Aesthetically pleasing.

BUFFERS: COMMON SENSE CONSERVATION

Notes to the Landowner:

USDA
Michigan
For more information contact your county Conservation District or your local USDA Service
Center. We're On the web at www.mi.nrcs.usda.gov or www.macd.org

All programs and services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture are offered on a nondiscrimination basis without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, marital status, or handicap.

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