Published: July 12, 2009 12:01 am      

Friendlier farming: Program protects both livestock, environment

LIGONIER — At Bill and Debbie Snyder’s farm, a new project is protecting both the livestock and the environment.

The Snyders’ Town’s Edge Farm in Ligonier Township is in an Environmental Quality Incentive Program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and Loyalhanna Watershed Association.

The project meant the installation of cattle crossings to keep cattle from wandering through a stream. That protects the animals’ feet from overexposure to water, and also cuts down on erosion since the cows aren’t climbing up and down the stream bank.

The project has also provided the Snyders with irrigation in various pasture areas for rotational grazing.

Ben Wright, assistant director of the conservancy’s Freshwater Conservation Program based in Blairsville, said the program also helps the Snyders and other farmers install fencing and a wildlife protection area incorporated with the fencing.

He said the fencing keeps the cattle from getting into the woods, thus providing a ready habitat for the many types of wildlife that surround Town’s Edge Farm.

Town’s Edge Farm represents the largest of 19 such projects in the Ligonier Valley, Wright said, and cost close to $160,000.

“The program is helping us very much,” Bill Snyder said.

The Snyders raise hormone-free beef cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens near the Ligonier Borough line.

Ninety percent of the project is designed to help the Snyders’ cattle operations.

The Snyders’ 27 head of cattle now can use the crossings to navigate their way through the farm’s three streams with minimal disturbance to those waters, Wright said.

They can drink water from the streams without tearing up their banks, he added.

More than 30 fields are used for rotational grazing. The fields range in size from 5 to 8 acres.

And each field includes a water trough that will limit the trips the cattle have to make to the streams, Wright said.

He said the project began in June 2007 with the installation of fencing and was just completed in March.

Snyder said the project has gone a long way in eliminating mud. It has eliminated the need to carry water to his cattle.

“And we’ve been seeing wildlife that we haven’t seen before on the farm,” he said.

At the height of the winter, usually beginning in January, the cattle are kept in a covered feedlot near a stream that runs behind the farm. That waterway was cleaned out and lined with rock as part of the Agriculture Department’s project design, Wright said.

At other times of the year, the field can be used for other agriculture purposes.

“It is used 12 months out of the year,” he said.

Wright also designed a nutrient management plan that provides guidelines for the Snyders on when and how to spread manure, Bill Snyder said.

Town’s Edge Farm encompasses 115 acres.

On Dec. 30, an agricultural easement was acquired for Town’s Edge Farm by the conservancy, in partnership with the Westmoreland County Agricultural Lands Preservation Board. The easement means the farm will remain in private hands while permanently restricting future uses to farming and timbering, Wright said.