Policy Plate: Conservation news
- In today’s Environment and Energy Daily (subscription required), reporter Amanda Peterka writes that it’s unlikely that the issue of conservation compliance will be addressed in Wednesday’s Senate farm bill hearing on the commodity title.
- Agriculture.com reports that contracts on about 6.5 million acres of land currently in the conservation reserve program are set to expire on September 30. A good percentage of those acres are likely destined to return to cropland.
- A Maryland farmer writes in a letter to the editor of the Baltimore Sun that voluntary conservation programs have failed to stem agriculture pollution. “If we are serious about cleaning up the bay,” he writes, “what we need are a set of uniform — and uniformly enforced — rules for all farmers to abide by.”
- Efforts to clean Massachusetts’ Buzzards Bay are being stymied by a new pollution source – nitrates.
- NPR’s Salt blog on Why Monsanto Thought Weeds Would Never Defeat Roundup.
- The Des Moines Register covers a geologist who thinks that Iowa may be sitting on a vast oil supply. Having drilling rigs sprout up around farmland may have some farmers rethinking their stands on government pollution regulations.
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Tweet of the day:
? @eatsustainable Woo!!! #Illinois Says “No” To Ag Gag Bill - ow.ly/9BHmZ #animalwelfare #aggag
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