Craig Miller, from Miller Beef Inc. of Custer Township near Sandusky, with assistance from the Sanilac County field technician John Bowsky, recently was Re-Verified in the Cropping Systems and New verification in Livestock Systems of the Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program (MAEAP).
Also Completing Verifications this month were: Depcinski Farms LLC- Custer Township; J. Kautz Family Farms- Worth & Lexington Township and Lipskey Livestock – Minden Township, who earned a new verification.
MEAP is a volunteer program that farmers choose to do and depending on the category selected, helps them with best practices of management with crops, livestock, farmsteads and forest uses.
Statewide, about 10,000 farms are either MEAP verified or in the process of becoming verified. Locally, in Sanilac County, ag officials say of the several hundred farms in the county, only about 5% of the farms are involved with the program at one level or another.
To become verified in one of the four categories, farmers must complete a three-week process with attention given to crops, livestock, farmstead or land management.
John Bowsky works as the technician for MEAP in Sanilac County while Emily Crimmins is the tech for St. Clair County.
