Today, we’re coming to you from the Virginia capitol as the General Assembly closes out its fifth week of business. Legislators have seen many late nights this week as they worked to close out any remaining business before crossover next week. Watch now for more details on solar bill SB697.
Information provided by the Virginia Forest Landowner Education Program.
Before you can practice sustainable forestry, you must commit to doing it. What this commitment entails will vary depending on you and your land. But most natural resource professionals agree that a key component to making this commitment is obtaining a written forest management plan for your land.
What exactly is a forest management plan? A forest management plan states your goals for the future of your forest, describes the current conditions of your forest, and includes a list of activities to help you achieve your goals. The complexity of your plan will depend on the size of your land and the intensity of your management. Plans can be simple, including only a list of your goals, a collection of maps, a description of your trees (age, species, condition), and a list of activities; or they can be more in-depth, like a Forest Stewardship Plan, suitable for those of you who are doing a lot of active management (like timber harvesting).
The first step in the development of a forest management plan is to determine your land ownership goals. Goals are general statements about how you want your land to be in the future and do not include a timeline or any specifics of how or when you are going to reach them. Examples of common forest owner goals include:
For more information on determining your goals, with real life examples, watch this short video: Management Goals and Objectives. Once your goals are set, you should work with a forester and/or wildlife biologist who can help assess the current condition of your forest and develop a list of activities to help you achieve your goals. You can find your local forester here: https://dof.virginia.gov/ and your local wildlife biologist here: https://dwr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/media/dmap-map.pdf.
You may also want to check these upcoming and recurring educational opportunities for Virginia forest landowners:
Featured Events
Fifteen Minutes in the Forest videos are shown every other Friday at 12:15 on Facebook and YouTube Premiere.
2024 Landowner Woods & Wildlife Conferences
These long-running full-day conferences provide information, tools, and personal contacts to help private woodland owners keep their woods, and the wildlife that live in them, healthy and productive. A variety of topics are offered to appeal to owners of both small and large tracts, and both new and experienced owners.
2024 Woodland Steward Webinar Series: Focus on Silvopasture
This free webinar series will teach you how to establish, manage, and fund silvopasture systems. Established producers will share their experiences.
Learn about the conservation tools available to help you pass your land and your legacy on to the next generation while keeping it intact, in forest and in family ownership.
Landowner Retreats are co-hosted by the Virginia Department of Forestry and Virginia Cooperative Extension. Retreats provide information on hardwood and pine forest management, legacy planning, management planning, and more. They combine classroom, field trip and hands-on activities to teach concepts of sustainable woodland and wildlife management.
Visit the Blue Ridge PRISM website for programs on nonative invasives
This week has been busy at Virginia’s Capitol. Here’s a rundown of the important bills we’ve covered this week, but first we’re excited to share a face that is new to Farm Bureau Governmental Relations but is certainly not a stranger to Farm Bureau.
Robert Harper with Virginia Farm Bureau’s grain division provides this week’s market updates.
#merchandiserminute #grainfuture #virginiafarmbureau
The Alliance to Advance Climate-Smart Agriculture is a pilot program that will incentivize farmers and ranchers to adopt climate-smart agriculture practices that will maintain and improve agricultural productivity, benefit the producer, and improve climate resilience.
Under the three-year pilot program, The Alliance and its partners will help producers in Virginia prove the value of paying farmers and ranchers $100 per acre or animal unit for stewardship practices that deliver public value through carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas reduction, improved soil health, water quality, water conservation, and other environmental services. Direct payments will be issued by Virginia Tech.
Participating Districts:
Eligibility:
Applications opening on February 15-March 15. Looking for more information?
Join in to our Alliance Virtual Information Session on Monday, February 5 at 5:30pm! Register HERE!
We just closed out week three of session and Legislative Day is nearly here! In this video, we provide details on legislation that allows for both opportunities and challenges when it comes to utility-scale solar development and its impact on agriculture. If you can’t join us for Legislative Day, we encourage you to contact your legislators to share opposition to HB636, SB567 and SB697.
Robert Harper with Virginia Farm Bureau’s grain division provides this week’s market updates.
#merchandiserminute #grainfuture #virginiafarmbureau
Robert Harper with Virginia Farm Bureau’s grain division provides this week’s market updates.
#merchandiserminute #grainfuture #virginiafarmbureau
The second week of the General Assembly has concluded with subcommittees and committees beginning to meet and discuss bills. Both the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Natural Resources met this week and heard several bills of interest to Farm Bureau. Today, Friday, January 19 is the last day for bills to be filed by legislators, and Governmental Relations is continuing to monitor and review the latest bills as they arrive.
Welcome to the 2024 General Assembly session! It’s a new year with many new faces. Attributed to redistricting and retirements, Virginia experienced unprecedented turnover in the House and Senate during the November elections. And we’re seeing new faces in Virginia Farm Bureau’s governmental relations team as well. This year, our weekly updates are brought to you by Katelyn Jordan, who joined us about a year ago, and Jake Tabor, who joined just a few weeks ago. Meet Jake in the this video and watch until the end for a preview of our Legislative Day on January 28-29.
Plows and Politics 