Incentives for wildlife-rich field buffers could improve ecosystems and mitigate wildfires, conservationists hope
Frances Crowhill Sauder stands up to her knees in clover and jewelweed, gazing down at the nameless spring that originates up the wooded hillside from her 55-acre Fiddle Creek Dairy farm in Quarryville, Pennsylvania, which produces yoghurt and cheese from a small herd of grass-fed Jersey cows.
The spring’s lower banks border the farm’s pastures; they were recently planted with 450 young paw paw, persimmon, and other crop-bearing trees which, when harvested, will bring extra income to this small family operation that Crowhill Sauders and her husband, Tim, run against precariously slim profit margins.