|
This site is like an underground agricultural news service for the U.S.
Unfortunately there appears to be nothing like it in Canada.
My highlights.
My comments.
Darryl
THE
AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER June 16, 2003, Issue #259 Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness From a Public Interest Perspective EDITOR\PUBLISHER; A.V. Krebs MARYLAND GOVERNOR DECLARES Reversing an effort by the previous administration to force the large firms to deal with the environmental damage that comes from their industry, Ehrlich said he would look for voluntary measures or economic incentives to stanch the flow of millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus into the bay and the rivers and streams that feed it. "I plan to develop innovative solutions that clean up the Chesapeake Bay while allowing chicken processors and farmers to earn a living without excessive government intrusion," said Ehrlich, a Republican. His announcement came after a staff member in his Department of the Environment ruled the state had overstepped its authority in tying poultry processors' permits to the practices of the farmers growing their chickens. Maryland farmers still must meet requirements to deal with the chicken waste in an environmentally safe fashion. Across the state's Delmarva Peninsula, nearly one billion chickens are raised by farmers who are contracted by poultry corporations. The corporations deliver the birds or eggs to growers, provide the feed and then collect the animals for slaughter. But they leave the farmers with the tons of manure produced by the birds. Though farmers historically have used the waste --- a combination of litter and dung --- as fertilizer, it has become an increasing liability, and poultry companies have disavowed responsibility for it. As the number of birds raised on the Eastern Shore has surpassed the capacity of the cropland to absorb their manure, the waste has often washed into waterways, fueling algae blooms that choke the water of oxygen and light. Reminiscent of Canada's Walkerton/cattle manure spreading/E. coli/ ground water contamination. In 1997, scientists linked farm runoff to an outbreak of toxic algae that was blamed for killing hundreds of thousands of fish on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Then-Gov. Parris Glendening, a Democrat, shut down parts of three rivers and began a campaign in the Legislature to limit use of chicken manure as fertilizer. As part of that effort, Glendening sought to have Maryland become the first state to make the poultry processors responsible for overseeing disposal of the birds' waste. Virginia passed similar legislation in 1999. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has called livestock pollution the greatest threat to U.S. waterways, and in the late 1990s, it began regulating large livestock farms as factories. Those efforts were rolled back in January by the Bush administration. The poultry industry has said states don't have the authority to link their permits to the operations of other businesses, namely the growers. "If the state could say to the chicken companies, 'Your environmental permits are tied to the practices of businesses that supply you,' what would be next?" said William Satterfield, executive director of Delmarva Poultry Industry, an industry group. "Service stations responsible for what oil companies do at their refineries? Newspapers being responsible for how ink manufacturers handle their waste products? Theresa Pierno, Maryland director for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, said the Ehrlich administration's decision against using permits to manage manure doesn't relieve the state of its responsibility to come up with alternative ways to reduce pollution. "We want to see something with timetables and measurable goals in which they're going to do this," Pierno said. Under Glendening's permitting system, the poultry companies would have had to submit plans for management of manure produced at farms they own and verify contract growers have such plans. The corporations also would have had to help growers develop those plans if they request assistance and maintain records on the number of chickens each farmer raises, the amount of litter they generate and disposal options for farmers. If growers failed to properly dispose of chicken waste, the companies would have had to stop supplying them with new birds to raise until the problems were corrected. Once again placing the cost and blame on the farmer and
not on the corporation that makes the major profit for the environmental
degradation it causes. |
