Conservation funding for flooded lands helps small Arkansas farm

MONROE COUNTY, Ark. – Farm life has been a part of one family for generations, but after receiving funding it will continue to be a life source for that family and now Arkansas wildlife.

Angela Floyd-Ryland, owner of a 40-acre farm in Monroe County, said farming has been in her family history for decades.

“My great grandfather Louis Floyd acquired land in 1879,” Ryland said. “He was a slave for 33 years.”

Ryland said they have the original farm that her great grandpa was over and a second farm that she bought, though that one has faced many challenges with flooded cropland.

“It stays wet most of the season, so your crop yields are really low,” Ryland said.

She said she learned about conservation funding from the KKAC Organization and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Ryland said she applied for the funding and found new hope through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wetland Reserve Easement Partnership ( WREP ) program along with grant funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s program ( LMAV Fund ) Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley Restoration.

“I was able to get funded on the GARC rate for 2024 which was $2,584 per acre so that’s a total of $100,800, more or less,” Ryland said.

Together, these two programs helped Ryland receive funding, and through a conservation easement agreement, she was allowed to still own the farmland while the program turned 39 out of 40 acres from her farm into unsuitable flooded lands for crops into wetlands for wildlife.

“The government is restoring it back into what we call its “natural state” so that the fish can get back to their habitat and the rabbit and quail,” Ryland said.

She said she is grateful for the program’s assistance and is glad she can continue her family’s dream they never got to see.

“This was not something that my great grandfather, my father or grandfather could have achieved in their lifetime so it’s a beautiful thing,” Ryland said.

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