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10.26.04

By RICKY BOURGEOIS

Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc. recognized Kenneth Bounds, MidAtlantic Farm Credit vice president of development, with its highest honor, the J. Frank Gordy Distinguished Citizen Award, at the annual DPI Booster Banquet last week, saying Bounds "is a powerful voice for poultry and agriculture in the state legislatures."
Also at last week's banquet, which is normally held in April but had been postponed due to avian influenza outbreaks in Delaware and Maryland earlier this year, DPI awarded Dr. Russell Brinsfield, director of the University of Maryland Wye Research and Education Center and former Delaware State Rep. Charles P. West, each with the DPI Medal of Achievement for 2004.
Bounds, a longtime supporter of DPI, is a member of the group's board of directors and served as DPI's president in 1999.
"I guess they were going to do this back in April," Bounds said. "I'm surprised that somehow through my connections I hadn't found out about it. I was completely shocked."
Bounds, who began work with Farm Credit in 1977 after graduating from the University of Maryland with a degree in agronomy and soil sciences, said he wasn't sure how long he'd be working with the lending agency.
"I really thought I would stay six months," Bounds said. "I don't mean to sound corny, but there's hardly ever a day I don't enjoy going into the office." He attributes much of his job satisfaction to Farm Credit's status as a cooperative. "You feel like you don't have to be so profit-driven."
Farm Credit is the leading institution in financing poultry-farm construction on the peninsula, and that is where Bounds said he finds his greatest work satisfaction.
"My favorite thing is sitting down at the kitchen table with a customer, especially a young producer, and helping them get the financing they need," Bounds said.
Bounds is vice chairman of the LEAD Maryland Board of Directors, and said the organization is hoping to form an alumni association soon. Every two years, the project guides 12 Maryland residents who are in some way involved with agriculture through a course of workshops and projects designed to enhance their personal endeavors and position them to highlight the role of agriculture in society.
"LEAD Maryland has produced three classes of solid agricultural leaders," Bounds said. "The more agricultural and rural leaders we can turn out, agriculture is going to be better off for it."
While at the University of Maryland, Bounds was a member of the Dean's Leadership Council for the university's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. In addition to serving as chairman of the Delmarva Council for Profitable Agriculture and on the Delaware Chamber of Commerce Agriculture Committee, Bounds has been a member of the Maryland Department of Agriculture Task Force and the Maryland Farm Bureau Legislative Planning Group.
"The political process does work in this country," Bounds said. He said legislators, whether in local, state or federal government, want and depend on the input of the people they represent. "I have been amazed at how accessible that is if you take the time to pursue it."
Bounds said he witnessed two weeks ago the first loan approval through the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development for poultry-house construction, through an existing DBED program that Gov. Robert Ehrlich Jr. recommended this summer be focused on poultry-related loans. The program, administered in conjuction with Farm Credit, is designed to supplement a USDA Farm Service Agency loan insurance program. Bounds said the governor, DBED and Maryland Department of Agriculture officials have "bent over backwards to get this program out to producers."
Another lesson Bounds said he learned through working with the poultry industry: "Larger companies and corporations are made up of really good people. You can find good people who want to do the right things and will do the right things if you give them the time and the opportunity to do them."
He said he has been impressed with the way integrators and growers have handled the pressures put on the poultry industry, even during the administration of Maryland's previous governor, Paris Glendening, which he said created an atmosphere of unfriendliness toward agriculture. He said he admires the way growers have responded to problems facing the industry, through political and scientific channels.
Brinsfield is a leading researcher in the effects of agriculture on the health of the Chesapeake Bay. Much of his research deals with cover crops, which he says is the most cost-effective way of keeping agricultural runoff from polluting the bay and its watershed. Other recent work includes research on the effects of various tillage systems, including no-till methods, under different growing conditions and with different types of soils.
Brinsfield is a cofounder of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy, a group which seeks to mitigate the effects of development on farmland, forests and open spaces. He is also the executive director of the Maryland Center for Agro-Ecology, an organization that works to to balance the interests of agriculture and environment in ways that are helpful to both.
Brinsfield said he became involved with DPI in 1997, when the toxic marine organism known as Pfiesteria piscicida was found in the Chesapeake Bay and other Mid-Atlantic estuaries. Growth in Pfiesteria populations has been associated with excessive nutrient loading to waterways. Brinsfield, who had already been involved in years of research on manure applications and reducing nutrient loss from agricultural lands, was asked to serve as chairman of DPI's research committee.
"I was honored to be asked to do that," Brinsfield said. "That's how I really got involved with the industry in more detail."
He said he was impressed with the openness of the poultry industry "to tackle this problem up front."
He said it was during his time with the research council that he met Doug Green, who served as DPI president in 2003, and introduced Brinsfield as an Achievement Medal winner at last week's banquet.
"I didn't even realize he was talking about me until he was about three or four sentences into the introduction," Brinsfield said. "I was totally surprised."
Protecting the environment while at the same time maintaining a healthy poultry industry, and agriculture in general, has become the focus of Brinsfield's career.
"Between ’98 and now, we know a lot more about how to solve this problem than we used to. I'm not going to tell you we have all the answers," Brinsfield said, but "we are in much better shape to deal with these problems."
Brinsfield cited the collective benefit of research with colleague Ken Staver on tillage systems and manure transport and application, pelletizing poultry litter for use as fertilezer, as being done by Perdue Farms, and work on cutting phosphorus content in manure through dietary manipulation. University of Maryland researcher Dr. Rosalina Angel, who was a 2003 recipient of the DPI Achievement Award, continues to be a leading researcher in dietary controls of poultry-litter phosphorus content. Brinsfield said Angel's current efforts are to replicate the success of her research projects in a commercial-scale setting. Brinsfield said there is a potential to cut manure-phosphorus amounts by 50 percent.
"If you combine the diet opportunities with the tillage, you could have a tremendous environmental impact," Brinsfield said." I'm optimistic that we can see major changes without having to see a contraction in the industry. Any way you cut it, if you have a contraction of the poultry industry you're going to have a serious economic impact."
Brinsfield's involvement with agriculture has some interplay with his service as mayor of Vienna, Md., a small, Dorchester County town founded on the Nanticoke River in 1706. Brinsfield said his wish to see rural and agricultural areas to remain so has led him to advocate priority areas for development and growth that is centered tightly around the town constructs.
"One of the broader concerns is the loss of farmland. I worry all the time whether there's a 'critical mass' that's needed to sustain the poultry industry and agriculture.
"That's what's really been nice about my career up to this point," Brinsfield continued. "If you were a bird flying over, you'd see how it all sort of interrelates."
West, a Sussex County native, was elected to one term in the Delaware House of Representatives during the 1950s and was re-elected in 1978. His second stint in the state legislature lasted more than two decades, until his retirement in 2002.
West is credited with securing for farmers a tax break on leased equipment, and for instituting Delaware's Farmland Preservation law. He also was a key negotiator of the state's 1999 nutrient management law, regarded by DPI as "farmer friendly."
Each year at its banquet, DPI announces a number of outstanding poultry producers on the Delmarva Peninsula. Outstanding producers for 2004 are listed below.
Growers for Allen Family Foods: Charles Baker, Greenwood, Del.; Dorothy and John Kaufman, Seaford, Del.; Anne and John Shults, Henderson, Md.; and David and Doris Weber, Cambridge, Md.
Growers for Mountaire Farms: Karen Good, Delmar, Del.; Tom Marshall, Pittsville, Md.; Connie and Richard Nagel, Federalsburg, Md.; and Kimberly and Timothy Pruitt, Pocomoke City, Md.
Growers for Perdue Farms: David and Linda Conley, Centreville, Md.; Hinson and Mable Finney, Pocomoke City; Alan and Arenath Mills, Milford, Del.; Riverview Farm, Ocean View, Del.; Mark and Sue Whaley, Laurel, Del.; Pat and Roland White, Pittsville; and Wishart's Point Farm, Assawoman, Va.
Growers for Tyson Foods: Debra and Steve Bear, Willards, Md.; Jason and Kim Lambertson, Pocomoke City; and Carolyn and Greydon Shields, Parksley, Va.