Farmers Will Benefit from Bay Legislation
By Luke Brubaker
A lot of change is coming to Pennsylvania, Maryland and four other states whose rivers and streams flow into the nation’s largest fresh water estuary, the Chesapeake Bay.
This week the Obama administration announced a “draft strategy” to work harder with the states to clean up the water faster, including requiring states to set two-year milestones for reaching their water quality goals.
Federal and state efforts to clean up the Bay and our local waters are likely to bring new requirements to reduce nutrients and sediments entering waters that lead to the Bay. Fifty percent of the fresh water flowing into the Bay comes from Pennsylvania.
I hope and believe that the legislation introduced in Congress by U.S. Senator Ben Cardin and U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings — the Chesapeake Clean Water and Restoration Act of 2009 — will be a boost for agriculture to achieve benefits for our waters and environment. Since Sen. Cardin and Rep. Cummings both represent Maryland, which also has waters that run into the Bay, they share the same goal I do: to clean up the Bay — whose economic value is estimated to be more than $1 trillion a year — in the most economical way.
In partnership with my two sons, my wife and I own and operate Brubaker Farms in Mount Joy, Pa. My father purchased the farm in 1929 with just eight cows. When I purchased the farm from my father in the early 1960’s, we had 18 cows. Continuing the family business and tradition, my sons returned to the farm after graduating from college in the early 1990s to help run the farm. Since then, we have expanded the operation to maintain financial stability and to allow the farm to provide the income needed to sustain the three farm families that now rely on the farm for their economic well being.
One thing is not in doubt: farmers are willing to do their part to restore local waters and the Bay. We are stepping up to the plate, but want to know that others are being held accountable for their fair share as well. The Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act is very helpful in making clear that wastewater treatment plans, urban areas, new development, and transportation system share responsibility with agriculture for nutrient and sediment reductions to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay.
Farming today is not a high-profit industry. The reality of today’s farm economy, especially in the dairy and livestock industry, means that for many farmers the cash is just not there to implement important practices to benefit water quality, even if that practice can pay off in savings for the farmer in the long-term. This legislation recognizes this financial need and makes a meaningful financial commitment to practice implementation.
Equally important, the legislation will guarantee that states have the money to provide technical assistance to farmers like me who are doing our best to implement conservation practices on our farms. This resource is essential. If we are to get the job done, we need resources for conservation districts, private sector farm advisors, cooperative extension, and others to help farmers identify needed practices, learn how to implement those practices, and assess and adapt management over time to ensure those efforts work on the farm and deliver the water quality benefits we want and need.
The bill also advances an interstate nutrient trading program that can open up new financial incentives for farmers to implement conservation practices by expanding the nutrient credit marketplace. Over the past three years, we have participated in nutrient trading in our home town, the borough of Mount Joy. Our three year contract with the borough of Mount Joy has meant our farm has had the financial resources to implement new practices to benefit water quality. We hope to do a new trade agreement with the borough very soon.
I support Sen. Cardin and Rep. Cummings’ efforts to make sure farmers throughout the Chesapeake Bay Watershed have the same trading opportunities that I have had. To make it work, however, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must ensure that the rules are user-friendly, so that farmers can understand how the program works and take full advantage of the opportunities trading can offer. Equally important, the trading program must protect the quality and benefit local streams and rivers here in Pennsylvania and around the Bay.
Given its financial resources, attention to technical assistance, and trading opportunities, I believe the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act will be good for farmers, good for the Chesapeake Bay, and good for making sure that all of us, throughout the watershed, can have clean water.
Luke Brubaker operates Brubaker Farms with his sons Mike and Tony Brubaker in Mount Joy, Pa. Luke is the producer member of the Pennsylvania Milk Marketing Board, 2008 Mid-Atlantic Master Farmer, and recipient of the Exemplar Award, created to recognize a Lancaster County business and/or individual who best exemplifies the spirit of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s mission.
