Nick and Tara Meyer own Meyer Dairy a family-owned dairy farm located in Stearns County, Minnesota. The Meyers have two young children, Tyler and Madeline. At an early age, Nick the youngest of six children raised on his home farm knew he wanted to farm. After he graduated from college, Nick returned home to take over the Meyer dairy farm in 2003.

As with any farm transfer from one generation to the next, changes took place. The Meyers moved forward with a dairy expansion project that included a milking parlor, freestall farm and milking 175 cows. Meyer Dairy currently has four part-time employees and Nick’s father, Gerald still helps on the farm daily.

The Meyer family owns and operates 360 acres consisting of alfalfa and corn. “We are continuously improving our farm and embracing new technologies so that our children can have the same opportunity to continue the tradition on our dairy farm,” said Nick Meyer.

In 2010, the Meyers became aware of a new Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) conservation program that might work out on their farm in Stearns County. This program, the Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative (MRBI) focused on improving the health of the Mississippi River Basin. Through this Initiative, NRCS and its partners help producers in selected watersheds in the Mississippi River Basin voluntarily implement conservation practices that avoid, control, and trap nutrient runoff; improve wildlife habitat; and maintain agricultural productivity.

MRBI will be implemented by NRCS through the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative (CCPI) funding. In 2010, Stearns County Soil and Water Conservation District received funding to implement MRBI in the Sauk River Watershed.

“MRBI was the facilitating program to begin the Discovery Farm project on the Meyer farm”, said David Rose, District Conservationist, Waite Park, Minnesota.

Discovery Farms Minnesota is a farmer-led effort that is designed to gather information and assess the water quality impact of different types of farms in varying landscapes throughout Minnesota. The mission of the Discovery Farms program is to gather water quality information under real world conditions by providing practical, credible, site-specific information to assist better farm management.

The program is designed to collect accurate measurements of sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus movement over the soil surface and through subsurface drainage tiles. At the Meyer farm, surface water runoff and sub-surface drainage from an edge of the field monitoring site will be collected for a total of 5-7 years. The data collected will generate a better understanding of the relationship between agricultural land management and water quality.

Nick and Tara Meyer, were selected by the Minnesota Agricultural Water Resources Center to participate in the Discovery Farms program in 2010. Per this cooperative agreement, the Meyers agreed to have monitoring sites installed on their farm. The monitoring sites were fully functional by March, 2011.

Seeing the importance to recognize good conservation efforts when observed, the Stearns Soil and Water Conservation District recognized the Meyer family with the Outstanding Conservation Award for Stearns County Soil and Water Conservation District in 2009.

“We are proud to be part of the Discovery Farm program, because as farmers, we know environmental stewardship and farming go hand in hand,” said Tara Meyer.

The Meyers continue to practice conservation on their farm in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. They are thankful for the opportunity of being able to assist Discovery Farms Minnesota in making a difference in Stearns County.

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