Budget woes have implications for ag
12/17/02
By MARK POWELL
It is expected that Maryland’s projected $1.2 billion budget shortfall will impact state’s agriculture department , the agriculture college and Cooperative Extension.
The extent of the cutbacks are unknown. Outgoing Gov. Parris N. Glendening (D) has asked Maryland state universities to put together a budget with a 3.5 percent cut. Gov.-elect Robert Ehrlich (R) however, will present his own budget to the legislature on Jan. 17.
Many political observers see higher education as an area most likely to absorb budget cuts. State agencies, such as Maryland Department of Agriculture, have a large part of their budget made up of services mandated by law.
Speaking to Maryland Farm Bureau delegates gathered in Ocean City last week, State Sen. Lowell Stoltzfus (R-Lower Shore) said the budget problems are huge. “Implications are there for MDA, for all the agencies.
“We don’t have the pots of money to spend. They’ve all been spent. We spent the state’s rainy day fund on a sunny day.”
Stoltzfus — ranking Republican in the Senate and leader on the budget committee — pointed to higher education as a obvious target for cuts.
“We added on to the size of government, much of it in higher education.”
Stoltzfus and other legislators have been invited into the budget-making process by Ehrlich — an unusual happening in Annapolis, where the governor typically holds his budget-making process behind mostly closed doors.
“Every agency is coming in and saying, ‘We’re close to the bone,’” Stoltzfus said.
University of Maryland system chancellor Dr. William E. “Brett” Kirwan told the farmers at the meeting that they need to speak out against cuts to higher education. “We face a daunting budget year,” Kirwan said. He made a case for the value of the agricultural mission of the land-grant flagship campus, University of Maryland, College Park. “Land-grants and Extension continue to be relevant,” he said. “500,000 people were touched by Extension this year.”
He said 4-H is “dear to my heart.” Maryland has some 50,000 4-Hers.
Dr. Scott Angle, associate dean of agriculture and natural resources at College Park, told Farm Bureau members that the agriculture segment of the university system has not shared in the wealth of the budgets given the university with the support of Gov. Glendening.
“We have not been treated fairly,” Angle said. “We have addressed this to Dr. (C.D.) Mote Jr. (president of the College Park campus) and Dr. Kirwan. But, we’re going to do the best to suck it up and downsize.”
Angle said he could not promise areas that farmers value at the college and in Extension wouldn’t be impacted. “Lobbying works though,” he said, suggesting that farmers speak up for the open positions they want filled.
While budget debates will consume much of the political agenda in Maryland this year, farmers are anticipating a place at the table with the new Republican governor.
Stoltzfus assured them that they would be listened to by the new governor.
Political observers say that while the state’s nutrient management law is likely to have a new looking over, it does appear unlikely that it will be rescinded.
But, the law requiring farmers to have a plan to manage their fertilizer will be tinkered with to make it simpler.
“We have a governor-elect who says the era of blaming farmers is over,” Stoltzfus said.
“It has been a hostile environment for farmers,” he said. Stoltzfus said the agriculture department, as a result of mandatory nutrient management, has gone from being a partner to “policemen.” (MDA is charged with ensuring that farmers have nutrient management plans under the Water Quality Improvement Act.)
“A culture of distrust (of MDA) has developed here on the Lower Shore,” Stoltzfus said. It was a discouraging time for poultry farmers. There was a feeling that there was no future, that (the agriculture industry) was going to die.”
That may be changing, the senator said. “Ehrlich gets it, he gets it,” Stoltzfus said. “Agriculture contributes 14 to 15 percent to the economy.”
Stoltzfus acknowledged there are water quality problems which should be addressed by dealing with waste water treatment plants.
“Farmers need to be patted on the back, instead of kicked in the butt,” Stoltzfus said. “Will Baker (president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation) himself kept saying, ‘farmers are the most active conservationists.’”