Letting the Land Lead

By Kris Vance, NRCS State Public Affairs Specialist

Wetlands are among the most productive ecosystems on Earth. They are known to filter water, reduce flooding, recharge groundwater, store carbon and provide critical habitat for countless species of wildlife. Yet despite their benefits, many wetlands across Indiana were drained decades ago in an effort to create more farmland and are still threatened today. For Jim Wicks and Tom Malcolm, restoring nearly 48 acres of their St. Joseph County property through the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Wetland Reserve Easement (WRE) program was about giving one piece of Indiana’s  landscape the opportunity to return to what it was always meant to be. That journey began long before they ever enrolled in the program.

After retiring in 2017, Jim and Tom moved from Chicago to the 100-acre family farm they  purchased from Jim’s  parents' estate. The property includes woodlands, cropland and a low-lying field of muck that had challenged successive farmers.

"My dad actually started the Wetland Reserve Easement process in 1993," Jim said. "From what I’ve been told, the program wasn't as robust back then."

Although funding for the easement never materialized at the time, his father's observations about the land always stayed with Jim.

"He was really pretty clear about the fact that this field back here was just so troublesome. It didn't want to be a cropland," Jim said. "The message it was sending was pretty clear that it wasn't going to be reliably productive."

Well before Jim’s family purchased the land, drainage tiles kept the field tillable, allowing it to be farmed successfully. More recently, the tiles became heavily silted, making the field far less productive than it had been in the past.   When Jim and Tom took ownership of the property, they saw an opportunity to finish what Jim's father had started. At a time when environmental concerns weighed on their minds, restoring the wetland felt like the right decision.

Read the rest of the story and see more photos of their property on the NRCS Webpage - Letting the Land Lead.