Five Ohio families are featured in a new awareness campaign from the Natural Resource Conservation Service. The campaign, called “Conservation: Our Purpose, Our Passion,” focuses not on programs, but on individual producers and the successes they’ve enjoyed with NRCS programming. Ohio has one of the larger contingents of all the states represented, with producers using programs like EQIP, CREP, and CRP. Of all the producers profiled, eight were chosen as “featured customers,” serving as spokespersons of sorts. Of the eight, the Stoller family of Wayne County was selected from Ohio. Featured on the web, on posters, and in a promotional video, the family’s successful use of EQIP is highlighted. An excerpt from the web:

The Stoller Family operates a 250 acre certified organic dairy farm raising corn, soybeans, wheat, barley and alfalfa. They also have goats, chickens, donkeys and two dogs-Sassy and Benji.

They milk 90 Holsteins and market all of their milk through Organic Valley Co-op.

The Stollers are a brilliant example of farming with nature instead of against it. They strive to pass along the homestead by leaving the land better than they found it and also are teaching these important concepts to their children.

Their commitment to conservation has always been strong, but they began to work with the NRCS and Wayne SWCD offices in 1999; just two years after Scott lost his right arm in a baler accident.

They initially started working with NRCS by transitioning from conventional to an intensive grazing system. They currently manage about 50 acres of permanent pasture divided into 11 paddocks for grazing to reduce mechanical harvesting and the need for manure spreading.

Other Buckeyes participating in the campaign include Mike Altstaetter of Logan County, Tom and Will Koenig of Madison County, Alice & Carol O’Brien of Logan County, and Arden Weller of Putnam County. You can read their stories online to learn more about how they’ve successfully utilized the offerings of NRCS.