Farmers fight bay polluter image
'Everyone's in this ballgame, not just farmers'
By PAMELA WOOD, Staff Writer
Published 06/21/10
More than 200 farmers have penned a letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley, urging him to work with them - and not against them - when it comes to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay.
"We want everyone to realize everyone's in this ballgame, not just farmers," said Maryland Farm Bureau President Patricia Langenfelder of Kent County.
The farm bureau organized the petition effort, which grew from farmers' frustration at constantly being blamed for the bay's unhealthy state. The petition was delivered on Wednesday.
Shaun Adamec, an O'Malley spokesman, said the governor acknowledges the contributions farmers have made toward reducing pollution.
"There's nobody more appreciative of farmers than the governor when it comes to cleaning up the bay," Adamec said.
The petition was intended mainly to counteract negative attention that has been cast on farmers, Langenfelder said.
Farmers have built manure storage structures, planted buffers along streams, grown winter cover crops and instituted other "best management practices" to reduce nutrient and sediment pollution, Langenfelder said.
She noted that nutrient and sediment pollution from farms has decreased over the years due to such practices. Meanwhile, other sources of pollution - particularly urban and suburban stormwater runoff - are increasing.
Farming contributes just 7 percent of nitrogen in the Lower Western Shore. The top polluter locally is stormwater runoff - rainwater that rushes across roofs, parking lots and streets, carrying pollution into waterways. That contributes nearly 44 percent. Read More
It’s undeserved, but agriculture gets the blame for many things that they shouldn’t when it comes to pollution. The main reason is that they are the easiest target. Even though ag is the foundation of our entire society, since so few people are involved it makes it easy for the majority to attack. The top polluter for the bay is runoff from urban areas. If they really want to make a difference, they should start there.
Showing posts with label water pollution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label water pollution. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Why We Use Modern Technology
China’s farms pollute as much as its factories, survey finds
The Hindu
By Ananth Krishnan
2/10/10
For every tonne of chemical effluents that factories dump into China’s rivers and lakes, a comparable amount of harmful waste finds its way into this country’s water bodies from green fields and farmhouses.
A first of its kind pollution survey has found that farms have contributed as much to a growing pollution crisis in China as its famously unclean factories and industries.
The study, released by the Ministry of Environment and Forests this week, indicated that widespread agricultural pollution caused by the overuse of fertilizers has led to a level of pollution far higher than what has been previously stated in official reports.
Agricultural sources were found to account for 43.7 per cent of all COD discharge. The pollution stems from widespread overuse of fertilizers, with farmers using 40 per cent more fertilizers than required, according to a recent Greenpeace report.
The use of fertilizers and pesticides has enabled China to increase grain production eight times in the past four decades. But the use of nitrogen fertilizers has increased by 55 times, and has begun to seriously impact water pollution, the Greenpeace study found.
Mr. Zhang said the prevention and control of pollution from agricultural sources had now become China’s “top priority for environmental protection to resolve the problem of water pollution in China at the root”. Read More
If only there was a way to ensure that farm fields don’t get over-fertilized. Oh wait, there is! It’s the modern technology that we have implemented in this country to ensure that doesn’t happen. These systems manage our fertilizer needs on a field down to the square foot or better. In addition to that, we use new varieties of crops that do a better job of utilizing the resources available to it in the soil. All of these great technologies are under attack though. We have people like Michael Pollan who actively promotes US agriculture use technology equal or even lesser to that being used in Chinese agriculture. His reckless ideas would put us right into the position China is experiencing.
The Hindu
By Ananth Krishnan
2/10/10
For every tonne of chemical effluents that factories dump into China’s rivers and lakes, a comparable amount of harmful waste finds its way into this country’s water bodies from green fields and farmhouses.
A first of its kind pollution survey has found that farms have contributed as much to a growing pollution crisis in China as its famously unclean factories and industries.
The study, released by the Ministry of Environment and Forests this week, indicated that widespread agricultural pollution caused by the overuse of fertilizers has led to a level of pollution far higher than what has been previously stated in official reports.
Agricultural sources were found to account for 43.7 per cent of all COD discharge. The pollution stems from widespread overuse of fertilizers, with farmers using 40 per cent more fertilizers than required, according to a recent Greenpeace report.
The use of fertilizers and pesticides has enabled China to increase grain production eight times in the past four decades. But the use of nitrogen fertilizers has increased by 55 times, and has begun to seriously impact water pollution, the Greenpeace study found.
Mr. Zhang said the prevention and control of pollution from agricultural sources had now become China’s “top priority for environmental protection to resolve the problem of water pollution in China at the root”. Read More
If only there was a way to ensure that farm fields don’t get over-fertilized. Oh wait, there is! It’s the modern technology that we have implemented in this country to ensure that doesn’t happen. These systems manage our fertilizer needs on a field down to the square foot or better. In addition to that, we use new varieties of crops that do a better job of utilizing the resources available to it in the soil. All of these great technologies are under attack though. We have people like Michael Pollan who actively promotes US agriculture use technology equal or even lesser to that being used in Chinese agriculture. His reckless ideas would put us right into the position China is experiencing.
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