Holiday Travel & Nutrient Management Standard
Holiday Travel & Nutrient Management Standard plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.
Farmers in the future who want to enroll in some USDA conservation programs will need to follow new standards for nutrient management. Dave White, Chief of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, listing some of the goals of the new nutrient management standard.
WHITE: We had like 5 goals for this. We want nutrient management plans that are understandable, helpful and defensible. We try to achieve a balance between production and environmental interests. We wanted to achieve effective nutrient planning. We definitely, definitely wanted to use the latest science and technology and to really give our states a clearer, better guidance on how to go about this.
Will you be traveling this holiday season? AAA is forecasting that some 91.9 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home during the Christmas-New Year’s holiday travel period, a 1.4 percent increase.That’s the second highest travel volume in the past decade. With gas prices coming down, more people will be traveling by car, an expected 2.1 increase.
Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.
As of January 1, 2012 some states will no longer have their DOA agencies be certifying agents for organic farms due to massive budget cuts. This means if a grower is already certified, they will have to contact an outside agency to maintain organic certification and pay for it out of pocket. If a grower is wanting to become newly organic certified, they will have to apply for out of state certification which could take much longer with no guarantees of availability. There is a misconception that organic certification is handled by the United States Department of Agriculture, but the USDA’s National Organic Program doesn’t provide certification, it just sets the organic standards for certifying agencies and approves states or private agencies to do so. With what would be a considerably high cost for bringing in out of state certifiers, most small family farms will not be able to afford organic certification; resulting in organic consumers having to buy organic produce from out of state or from foreign countries. Looks like organic growers may soon be facing the same dilemma as conventional growers; small producers versus big producers.
Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.
