9/10/02

By MARK POWELL

Brad Powers has an idea.
He almost always has an idea to throw out at you. Or, he has an answer to questions about Maryland’s farmers. Or, he can tell you all about the different types of fish raised through aquaculture — for years, aquaculture was his “baby” at the Maryland Department of Agriculture.
He can also tell you about how to judge a 4-H show and how grain is marketed out of Maryland. He can tell you about the value of the poultry industry after all those years of working with the Delmarva Poultry Industry.
And, then there’s the new project: the Council for Profitable Agriculture. The council, chaired by MidAtlantic Farm Credit’s Kenny Bounds, is just getting under way with the ambitious goal of helping the public understand the value of farming in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia.
Powers’ idea now is developing long-term funding for the Council. It got its start earlier this year with some seed money from grants. “Next, we have to get commitments from those in agriculture,” Powers said.
Powers hopes to remain involved with the Council. But, for the host of other responsibilities he’s held as the No. 2 man at the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Powers is stepping back. As of Sept. 30, Powers will retire after 33 years of service to Maryland agriculture at MDA, most recently as deputy secretary of agriculture.
Powers hopes to spend a lot of time hunting — a favorite pastime — and seeing the country camping with his wife Shari, who is also retiring from a teaching career with Talbot County schools.
“The time just seemed right,” Powers said. “We’re going to take the trailer and see some country.”
When the man who is deputy secretary leaves his Annapolis office later this month for his youthful retirement — Powers is 54 — it’ll be the first time in a long time he hasn’t been active promoting Maryland agriculture.
A Harford County native, Powers started working at the agriculture department in 1976 after a stint as 4-H Extension agent in Talbot County, where he started in 1969.
Powers grew up on Indian Spring Farm in Darlington, Md. His father managed the dairy operation.
“I started working on the farm when I was 11,” Power said. He was paid $1.50 a day, with the agreement from the farm’s owner that if he worked at that pay rate through his youth, he’d have his college tuition taken care of.
The deal worked out. Powers got his bachelor’s degree in agriculture from the University of Maryland and stopped just shy of a master’s.
Indian Spring Farm was a proving ground for Powers in more ways than one. “Truthfully, I learned more on that farm than I did in college,” Powers said. The farm, with milking cows of from 250 to 300 head, was the site of genetic work by USDA scientists.
As a youngster, Powers met some of the great agricultural scientists and thinkers who were often at the farm.
Most of those in Maryland agriculture know Powers from his years at MDA. He’s come in contact with scores of farmers and agribusinessmen in his long list of jobs.
Powers has done some of it all.
He established the agriculture department’s first field crops marketing program and helped to organize the Maryland Grain Producers Association and the Maryland Soybean Board. He was chief of MDA’s marketing department, when in 1988, he was appointed the state’s first aquaculture coordinator.
In aquaculture, Powers has helped to push the business of raising fish from a handful of entrepreneurs to one with 150 aquafarmers and more than $20 million in products. Those in the agriculture community who have worked with Powers over the years are impressed with his breadth of knowledge and ideas.
Lynne Hoot of the Maryland Grain Producers Association has worked with Powers since 1981 when she served as executive director of Maryland’s Agricultural Commission. “He’s been very diligent and very hard working and has always had ag as his prime interest,” Hoot said.
“He’s always looking at the broad spectrum of issues.”
Powers and others at MDA have learned a lot about their ability to work with farmers in recent years with the passage of the hugely unpopular mandatory nutrient management law.
From his many years of work in promoting agriculture, Powers and other MDA leaders have found themselves with the task of regulating the same farmers the agency has striven to protect and ensure a future for.
“The advent of codified nutrient management plans has taught us a lot about our ability to respond to the needs of the industry, while fulfilling the demands of the legislature and the administration,” Powers said.
MDA officials — Powers, Secretary of Agriculture Hagner Mister and Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Royden Powell III — continue to push for voluntary compliance with the state’s requirement that farmers have nutrient management plans.
At some point — some time soon — it is expected that MDA will have to enforce the nutrient management law. Such events will emphasize the agriculture department’s regulatory role with Maryland farmers.
But, Powers said, even though the agency has taken on a regulatory role, it remains an advocate for farmers.
Earlier in his career at MDA, the department’s marketing employees had much more direct contact with farmers. “We did grading of livestock,” Powers said. Now, though, MDA’s marketing staff spends its time developing markets and finding opportunities for the state’s farmers and agribusinesses.
“We work to develop farmers markets, start up value-added facilities and help farmers work with local, state and federal regulations,” Powers said.
Lately, MDA’s marketing staff has launched a new branding program — Maryland’s Best — which Powers has hopes will be an effective marketing tool to set off Maryland agricultural products from competition from other states and countries.
Powers has played major roles recently with getting LEAD-Maryland up and running. The agricultural leadership development program, now recruiting its third class, “is doing great things for the state,” he said.
Powers noted that those in the first class have not only remained active in the agricultural community, but have increased their involvement.
He also said the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation is taking major steps forward in its effort to promote the value of farming to Maryland’s public.
It’s with the same goal that the Council for Profitable Agriculture got started earlier this year. With some grant money, the council has bought television advertising on the Delmarva Peninsula to promote agriculture to the t.v.-viewing public. “That’s the agriculture community’s No. 1 issue,” Powers said. “Less and less people have an understanding of agriculture.”
That’s why, even though he’ll be retired — at least for a while — Powers plans on staying active promoting agriculture in the council and other venues.