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Connolly, MFB trying to show ag is doing a good job

1.29.2008

By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor

EASTON, Md. — She called it Maryland agriculture’s “public perception war,” trying to convince the lawmakers in Annapolis that “agriculture is doing a good job” in its role in protecting the Chesapeake Bay.
“We were doing pretty well,” Maryland Farm Bureau Director of Government Relations Valerie Connelly said last week, but, over the past year, it has been on a slippery slope.
Former Maryland legislator Gerald Winegrad is going around the state with a 2 1/2 hour Power Point presentation accusing agriculture of a major share of Bay pollution, she said.
The new attorney general, Doug Gansler campaigned on a platform to crack down on Bay polluters and is now finding that “the law is getting in his way” because nobody’s breaking it. And, Connelly continued, the Waterkeeper Alliance is now in the mix and could be considering a lawsuit to force the Maryland Department of Agriculture to make public farm nutrient management plans.
But it’s not all bad news, Connelly told about the 70 who had gathered for the 56th annual awards dinner of the Talbot County Corn Club. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and “a lot of legislators,” Connelly said, “want to work with us” and they are encouraging ag leaders and farmers to file comments with the Maryland Department of the Environment on the draft proposal to require CAFO and MAFO permits for poultry farms.
There are indications from Gov. Martin O’Malley’s office that changes in the MDE proposal would be carefully considered, Connelly said. “We have got to work together.”
Guests at the event included Maryland Ag Secretary Roger Richardson who lives in Eden on the Lower Shore; Dr. Nick Place, the new associate Extension director at the University of Maryland; Dr. Robert Tjaden, Extension ag program director; and Dr. Robert Kratochvil, Extension crop production specialist.