RICHMOND—The Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services announced Nov. 2 that selected farmers in the state will be asked to participate in the 2011 National Resources Inventory’s Conservation Effects Assessment Project, or CEAP, survey.

The survey will gather information about farming and conservation practices on cultivated cropland in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Starting this month, surveyors from the National Agricultural Statistics Service will begin visiting more than 1,500 farms in Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. They’ll ask farmers to share information on farm production practices; chemical, fertilizer and manure applications; integrated pest management; and adopted conservation practices. Participants are guaranteed by law that their individual information will be kept confidential.

"Chesapeake Bay area farmers, especially those in Virginia, have continued to install many on-farm best management practices since NASS conducted the last CEAP survey in 2006," said Herman Ellison, director of the NASS Virginia field office. "This updated information is needed to document the prevalence of all conservation practices and provide the base from which to strengthen conservation planning, implementation and management."

Matthew J. Lohr, Virginia’s commissioner of agriculture and consumer services, said responses to the survey will help provide a much-needed and complete picture of conservation practices in the bay watershed; illustrate the work that farmers already are doing to conserve natural resources; improve and strengthen technical and financial programs that help farmers plan and install conservation practices in the watershed; and maintain the conservation programs that can help producers’ bottom lines.

Information about the bay watershed CEAP survey is available from the NASS Virginia field office at 800-772-0670 and from nass.usda.gov.

Contact Elaine Lidholm, VDACS communications director, at 804-786-7686 or Krissy Young, NASS, at 202-690-8123