Dedicated to Proper Land Management
Making conservation work for farmers and landowners is the primary mission of Steward Link. The decade-old company, based in Winona, is all about being a good steward of land. Nick Thomas, President and Founder, grew up working his family’s farm and after graduating Mississippi State University returned to his hometown. But, an opportunity to work with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service put him on the path to creating Steward Link.
“Steward Link was formed by a group of individuals who love the land and wildlife and are dedicated to land management,” says Thomas. “We strive to help fellow land managers achieve their own goals for their land. With that in mind, we are committed to working hand in hand with NRCS to realize the common goal of implementing effective conservation practices on the ground.”
When farmers decide to take low producing land out of row crop rotation, they have to work the maze of government directives in order to turn that land into conservation acreage. That’s where Steward Link lends a hand to walk through those mazes, hurdles and red tape to help farmers make the best decisions.
“There are multiple programs out there,” says Thomas. “Environmental Quality Incentive Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program are both popular. We’ve helped people with wetland reserve easements and different private programs, state programs and just really any conservation-related program. We try to try to help people get enrolled in as long as it’s meeting their goals and benefiting what they’re trying to do.”
Thomas explains that Steward Link simply helps farmers with understanding what their goals are.
“We don’t try to influence, but we try to understand what they’re wanting to do with the land,” he says. “Maybe they want to develop it for wildlife or maybe it’s production agriculture or something different. But, based on whatever their goals are, we try to find the best conservation program for their needs and get them signed up, make sure all the eligibility paperwork’s done and hopefully give them the best use out of it.”
Once the decision is made for a particular program, Thomas and his staff continue the work to get government funding for the landowner.
“Then we help them with the compliance side of things throughout the life of the contract, making sure the practices are implemented correctly and documented correctly and so they can receive the funds,” says Thomas.
The contracts run different lengths depending on the program.
“With Wetland Reserve Easement, most of those easements are perpetual,” he says. “They may still do a thirty-year easement, but I think the large majority of them are perpetual easements. A CSP contract is always five years long. EQIP might be one year, it might be five years, usually somewhere in between.”
The Conservation Reserve Program is designed to take production land or less productive land out of production and replace it with conservation cover such as grass or other types of vegetation. The government then pays you an annual rent, which should be based on the average rent for that county. This program incentivizes landowners to set aside less productive land out of the farm and receive a payment to put it back in wildlife habitat or erosion control
“There’s a lot of people wanting to apply conservation practices but it has to make sense for them,” says Thomas. “Farmers have got to make a living, so the bottom line is the most important thing. The reason for these incentive programs, we’ve got to incentivize private landowners.”
Steward Link works guiding landowners through the maze of paperwork and understanding the deadlines from state to state and even county to county.
“It’s really tough complex government programs and everything’s got an acronym or code or something and it becomes a lot to digest for just the average person who sits down and starts looking into this,” says Thomas. “We find that a lot of landowners are looking for some help to navigate the process. I’ve worked for NCRS for twelve years and have been a consultant for ten, and it’s still a challenge.”
With fourteen full-time along with several part-time consultants, Steward Link continues to serve landowners helping them work their way through government forms and procedures to make better use of their land. For more information, check out stewardlink.com.