Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Ag and the Chesapeake Bay

The Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation is administered by a thirteen-member Board of Trustees which includes the State's Comptroller, Treasurer, Secretary of Agriculture, and Secretary of Planning, all of whom serve as "ex officio" members. The other nine members of the Board serve "at-large" and represent various regions of the State.

All members are appointed by the Governor and serve a term of four years. At least five of the at-large members are farmer representatives; the Board has representation from the Maryland Agricultural Commission, the Maryland Farm Bureau, the Maryland State Grange, the Maryland Young Farmers' Advisory Board, and the State's forestry industry.

Responsibilities of the Foundation's Board of Trustees include

Disseminating information to farmland owners and other Maryland citizens;

Providing assistance and coordination to the twenty-three Agricultural Land Preservation Advisory Boards;

Promulgating program rules, regulations, and procedures;

Reviewing and approving easement applications; and

Acquiring by purchase or donation, agricultural land preservation easements on productive agricultural land.

Members of the Board Trustees

Bernard L. Jones, Sr.

Acting-Chair, Board of Trustees

At-large Representative

Carroll County resident

Appointed: 2010

Michael Calkins

Young Farmers' Advisory Board Representative

Howard County resident

Appointed: 2014

Craig Highfield

At-large Representative

Anne Arundel County resident

Appointed: 2013

Patricia A. Langenfelder

At-large Representative

Kent County resident

Appointed: 2013

Donald T. Moore

Maryland Grange Representative

Cecil County resident

Appointed: 2009

James B. “Bubby” Norris, Jr.

At-large Representative

St. Mary’s County resident

Appointed: 2009

Jonathan Quinn

At-large Representative

Cecil County resident

Appointed: 2008

Eugene B. Roberts, Jr.

Agriculture Commission Representative

Howard County resident

Appointed: 2011

Honorable Peter Franchot

State Comptroller

Ex Officio Member

Represented by Jerome Klasmeier

Honorable David R. Craig

Secretary of Planning

Ex Officio Member

Represented by Daniel Rosen

Honorable Nancy K. Kopp

State Treasurer

Ex Officio Member

Represented by Susanne Brogan

Honorable Joe Bartenfelder

Secretary of Agriculture

Ex Officio Member

Represented by James P. Eichhorst

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Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Reprint from nine years ago: Ag, Bay groups remain wary of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Reprint from nine years ago: Ag, Bay groups remain wary of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2016/03/reprint-from-nine-years-ago-ag-bay.html

Ag, Bay groups remain wary of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Update March 21, 2015 - Sadly this is a dead link: http://www.americanfarm.com/TopStory3.21.06a.html

See the entire article here: http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2006/03/ag-bay-groups-remain-wary-of-chesapeake.html

Labels: Ag and the Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Bay, Chesapeake Bay Foundation

3.21.2006 by STEPHANIE JORDAN

For years, the agricultural community has been distrustful of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

But in recent months, various officials from the farm community and the foundation have been able to sit at the same table and push for a common goal — to have a viable, profitable agriculture that protects the environment.

Both sides are critical of the “dating” relationship the two groups are experiencing, and both say that marriage is far into the future.

Down for the count?

Before 1997, CBF and the farm community had what some have called a mutual existence.

“I guess we had a non-relationship prior to 1997,” said Bill Satterfield, executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry.

In 1998, however, that changed, when Pfiesteria was discovered to have caused fish deaths in the Chesapeake Bay.

“We did what we believed was right at the time,” said Kim Coble, Maryland executive director for CBF. “That’s when the relationship severed. I think (the farmers) resented our call.”

That call was to crack down on nutrient management. A scientist from North Carolina State University had come out with research that said the Pfiesteria was caused by poultry manure. The foundation wanted poultry companies to share responsibility for their growers’ manure handling, and the Parris Glendening administration agreed.

“We may be part of the problem, but we’re not the biggest part of the problem,” said Buddy Hance, president of the Maryland Farm Bureau.

Though the research was disproved, the relationship between the two communities was severed.

“The two communities have been fairly separate historically, which is unfortunate,” said Michael Heller, farm manager of CBF’s Clagett Farm. “By approaching the problem in a one-dimensional way, they put the agricultural community on the defensive.”

Read more here: Update March 21, 2015 - Sadly this is a dead link: http://www.americanfarm.com/TopStory3.21.06a.html

Taking a risk

In the past, CBF would tell farmers one thing, but turn around and release a report that would say another, said Delegate Paul Stull, R-4A Dist.

“It seemed like every article that came out, (they) were ridiculing the farmers,” he said. “We all want to see clean water and a clean bay. Farmers aren’t the only ones polluting the bay.”

Hance received a call last summer regarding the the CBF’s report, “Vital Signs: Assessing the State of Chesapeake Agriculture in 2005.” The foundation called to ask him if he would be willing to go to the press conference in September announcing the report.

He checked with Farm Bureau leadership, and asked to see the report, which details the importance of agriculture to the Chesapeake Bay, ahead of time to help make the decision.

“Everyone always says be careful who you get in bed with,” Hance said. “We haven’t gotten in bed with anybody. People just have to move on. You can’t dwell on the past. You can’t hold a grudge.”

And meeting in the middle and working together, officials say, is the best way to accomplish goals for the both groups.

“I think we all need to know when we’ve got a goal to meet,” said Lew Riley, Maryland’s secretary of agriculture. “I think the farm community realizes the importance of the Chesapeake Bay. I think the environmental community realizes the importance of the agricultural community.”

Relationship counseling

Both groups can now sit at the same table in the Lowe House or Miller Senate buildings in Annapolis without going after the other.

“I’ve got to hand it to the farm community,” Coble said. “There wasn’t one person who wasn’t willing to turn the page from here. I have a lot of respect for the farming community for turning the page that quickly.”

But some are still critical of the cooperative spirit that has surfaced in recent months.

“It wasn’t that many years ago, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation was accusing agriculture of causing Pfiesteria in the Chesapeake Bay,” said Sen. Richard Colburn, R-37th Dist. “You just have to be careful in any new friendship. Hopefully it will be a lasting alliance. It’s a wait-and-see attitude that you have to take.”

And while farmers are happy to have CBF on their side, they say they are still wary.

“Everyone I’ve talked to is viewing it with guarded optimism,” said Steve Moore, a Sudlersville farmer. “In the past, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has been an adversary to the farmers, rather than an asset. We’re happy to see them working with the legislature … and we hope that continues.”

The foundation acknowledges the communication barriers of the past, and says it is working to show farmers that it really is on their side.

There were “mistakes of poor communication and we apologize for those,” said Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. “Saving the bay and saving the farm are just two sides of the same coin. If we lose our agricultural heritage, we’re going to lose the bay.”

Moving on

Changing its perspective has helped elevate the foundation in the agricultural community. The foundation now sees farming as the most cost-effective way to save the bay, and as the best way to help the environment.

“They had a change of direction,” said Jim Saathoff, a farmer from Denton whose land in Dorchester County would be impacted by the Blackwater Development. “We’re treading lightly. They’ve been honest so far, at least with me. They’ve come to realize that blaming the farmer isn’t going to save the bay.”
Saathoff said the organization deserves a chance to prove itself.

“Let’s work with them and see if they’re serious about this,” he said. “We don’t have many more chances to save the bay. The watermen will tell you there are dead zones out there, and farmers didn’t make them.”

Trust takes time, as it does with any relationship, and officials from both groups admit that change hasn’t taken place overnight. The farm community is still suspicious of the bay foundation, and the environmental community has accused CBF of being too lenient on farmers now.

But the groups say they are willing to give each other a chance.

“We’re not going to agree on everything,” Hance said. “We’ve agreed to disagree. So far, it’s working out. It takes time. We didn’t expect everyone to agree on everything. But you can still have differences and get the work done.”
Looking at the change of heart from both groups is almost a sigh of relief for some, and the sigh brings with it a hope for the future.

“There’s a very genuine sense that we really want to help farmers keep farming,” Heller said. “If we lose farms, we’re losing a valuable ally for solving water quality issues. It’s more than just a change in saying what we think of agriculture. We have to link farm viability and bay health, and not just focus on the bay health piece.”

Back to the future

Forgiveness is divine and the groups are moving forward, putting the past behind them, said Sen. J. Lowell Stoltzfus, R-38th Dist., and Senate minority leader.

“Inside, I still have a lot of frustration about what happened under the Glendening Administration. At the same time, we must extend the olive branch and we must go beyond that anger. We must work out a genuine, long-lasting partnership.”

As far as “first dates” go, Riley said he married his first date, and hopes that the groups will continue to work together to have a true partnership.

“It comes together very well when you’ve got a cooperative effort,” he said. “It’s encouraging to see the two sides coming together. Life’s a lot more pleasant for me and a lot more pleasant for farmers.”

Both sides recognize the advantages in working together, and look to cement a relationship that can go beyond dating.

“The farming community has met us more than halfway,” Baker said. “I think we’ve gotten over the past and we’re moving forward. We’re working for the future and trying to put the past behind us. We realize we have to earn the trust of agriculture, and we’re prepared for the long term investment. I believe it. I’m committed to it. We’re committed to it.”

*****

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Thursday, August 29, 2013

Federal judge rejects Perdue bid to recoup legal fees from Waterkeeper Alliance

Waterkeeper Alliance suit cost $3 million

Aug. 27, 2013 Written by Jeff Montgomery The News Journal

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130828/NEWS/308280047/Federal-judge-rejects-Perdue-bid-recoup-legal-fees?utm_source=Chesapeake+Bay+News&utm_campaign=800ca8d743-Chesapeake_Bay_News4_23_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71ced15df1-800ca8d743-61679805

In a case closely watched by citizen advocacy and farm groups, a federal judge on Tuesday rejected a farm industry bid to collect $3 million in legal fees from a group that sued Perdue Farms and a family farm in 2010 over Pocomoke River water pollution.

U.S. District Court Judge William M. Nickerson tossed out the Waterkeeper Alliance’s Clean Water Act case last year, concluding in an opinion that the action was flawed and “not pursued or litigated as well as it could have been.”

“It is most unfortunate that so much time and so many resources were expended on this action that accomplished so little,” Nickerson wrote,adding later: “That, however, is not the same as concluding that the underlying claim was ‘frivolous, unreasonable or without foundation,’ or ever clearly became so.”

The Waterkeeper Alliance sued Perdue and the Alan and Kristin Hudson Farm near Berlin, Md., using a provision of the Clean Water Act to seek enforcement for what the group viewed as uncontrolled releases of poultry wastes... http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20130828/NEWS/308280047/Federal-judge-rejects-Perdue-bid-recoup-legal-fees?utm_source=Chesapeake+Bay+News&utm_campaign=800ca8d743-Chesapeake_Bay_News4_23_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_71ced15df1-800ca8d743-61679805

*****

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Farm pollution lawsuit spurs public relations battle

Poultry industry, environmental groups fund lawyers for national bellwether

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bs-gr-chicken-farmer-campaign-20120319,0,1037150,full.story

Labels: Ag, Ag and the Chesapeake Bay, Ag Environmentalism, Ag Save Farm Families, Chesapeake Bay, Enviro Waterkeeper Alliance, Environmentalism, MD co Eastern Shore Delmarva

By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun

March 19, 2012

With a catch in her throat, Kristin Hudson talks in a video posted online about her young daughter asking if "they" will take away her daddy's farm.

The video, featured on SaveFarmFamilies.org rallied farmers and others across the country to the side of an Eastern Shore farm couple fighting an environmental group's lawsuit alleging that the farm polluted a Chesapeake Bay tributary.

The Web-based organization has raised more than $200,000 to date from Perdue Farms, agricultural groups and other farmers to help Alan and Kristin Hudson pay legal bills in the 2-year-old case, according to one of the group's leaders. Meanwhile, two Maryland foundations with environmental agendas have poured a comparable amount into supporting the suit filed by the Waterkeepers Alliance… http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/bs-gr-chicken-farmer-campaign-20120319,0,1037150,full.story

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Friday, January 06, 2012

Save Farm Families Fundraiser planned for the Hudson Family on February 18, 2012

When: Saturday, February 18, 2012

Time: 3:00pm until 8:00pm

At Queen Anne's County 4-H Park; Centreville, MD

The Hudson Family of Berlin, Maryland is being sued by the New York based Waterkeeper Alliance. They operate a poultry and beef farm in Worcester County, Maryland. 100% of the funds raised will go to help the Hudson family pay their legal bills. This event is sponsored by the Caroline, Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne's and Talbot County Farm Bureaus.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/SaveFarmFamiliesorg/169007433178617?sk=info

Our goal is simple: Stand up and protect struggling farm families from bankruptcy triggered by extremist groups and their lawsuits.

For more than two centuries, family farms have been critical to the Maryland economy and the state’s way of life. Many of us are the sons and daughters of men and women who farmed, fished and raised their families in every corner of the Free State.

The Maryland Family Farmers Legal Defense Fund, Inc. was created to help Alan and Kristin Hudson, who run a family farm located near Maryland’s Eastern Shore, pay their mounting legal bills and to call attention to the threat that radical groups like the Waterkeeper Alliance pose to every family farm in America. Unless we stop them in the courtroom, Maryland’s largest industry, responsible for 14 percent of the state’s workforce, could disappear forever.

Website http://www.SaveFarmFamilies.org

[20120218 Save Farm Families Fundraiser]

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Saturday, March 25, 2006

Ag, Bay groups remain wary of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation

Update March 21, 2015 - Sadly this is a dead link: http://www.americanfarm.com/TopStory3.21.06a.html

3.21.2006 by STEPHANIE JORDAN

For years, the agricultural community has been distrustful of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Both sides are critical of the “dating” relationship the two groups are experiencing, and both say that marriage is far into the future.

Down for the count?

Before 1997, CBF and the farm community had what some have called a mutual existence.

“I guess we had a non-relationship prior to 1997,” said Bill Satterfield, executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry.

In 1998, however, that changed, when Pfiesteria was discovered to have caused fish deaths in the Chesapeake Bay.

“We did what we believed was right at the time,” said Kim Coble, Maryland executive director for CBF. “That’s when the relationship severed. I think (the farmers) resented our call.”

“We may be part of the problem, but we’re not the biggest part of the problem,” said Buddy Hance, president of the Maryland Farm Bureau.

Though the research was disproved, the relationship between the two communities was severed.

Read more here: Update March 21, 2015 - Sadly this is a dead link: http://www.americanfarm.com/TopStory3.21.06a.html

Taking a risk

In the past, CBF would tell farmers one thing, but turn around and release a report that would say another, said Delegate Paul Stull, R-4A Dist.

“It seemed like every article that came out, (they) were ridiculing the farmers,” he said. “We all want to see clean water and a clean bay. Farmers aren’t the only ones polluting the bay.”

He checked with Farm Bureau leadership, and asked to see the report, which details the importance of agriculture to the Chesapeake Bay, ahead of time to help make the decision.

And meeting in the middle and working together, officials say, is the best way to accomplish goals for the both groups.

Relationship counseling

Both groups can now sit at the same table in the Lowe House or Miller Senate buildings in Annapolis without going after the other.

But some are still critical of the cooperative spirit that has surfaced in recent months.

And while farmers are happy to have CBF on their side, they say they are still wary.

The foundation acknowledges the communication barriers of the past, and says it is working to show farmers that it really is on their side.

Moving on

But the groups say they are willing to give each other a chance.

Back to the future

Forgiveness is divine and the groups are moving forward, putting the past behind them, said Sen. J. Lowell Stoltzfus, R-38th Dist., and Senate minority leader.

As far as “first dates” go, Riley said he married his first date, and hopes that the groups will continue to work together to have a true partnership.

Both sides recognize the advantages in working together, and look to cement a relationship that can go beyond dating.

*****