tices may be the right fit for some agricultural situations, they may be the wrong fit for others. The net result is that mandates can actually hurt water quality improvement efforts.
“What we have done is turn the clock back in some situations. Agriculture has been progressively moving forward with technology that allows us to be more site specific,” McGrath said. “Some of the regulations, like mandating the incorporation of manure, may be fine on the coastal plain where it is flat, but in western Maryland with steep slopes and highly erodible soil, no–till was dominant. We’ve just turned back the clock to the 1970s by having these incorporation regulations across the board. Blanket regulations are moving us backwards with regard to site specificity.”
There is also quite a bit of emphasis, maybe too much, on the value of cover crops in Maryland.
“For a long time, cover crops have been viewed as the main tool for water quality in Maryland. A lot of this is tied to the way the federal policy is structured. The way the Chesapeake Bay model works, cover crops are the highest credit for nitrogen conservation,” McGrath said. “Cover crops are great, and in Maryland farmers are paid very well for growing cover crops. But, with N, a small grain doesn’t really take up much N until green-up. Nitrate leaching starts in August when corn senesces, which is our highest rainfall month. That nitrate has likely already leached out of the root zone by the time a cover crop starts taking up significant amounts of N. So, while cover crops are a good Band-Aid to recover some of the excess N in the soils, it is not recovering the majority of it.”
With such emphasis being placed on cover crops that, in reality, may not be doing as much good as the government models suggest, there is a significant political risk to agriculture in the future.
“Our lawmakers are investing all of their cost share dollars in cover crops because they have to meet the model load restrictions and not the real load restrictions. That is dangerous for agriculture,” McGrath said. “We’re going though all of the painful steps to improve water quality and if what they are making us do doesn’t really improve water quality, they will come back in 20 years and say, ‘Ag you cheated us. You told us you put in cover crops but you must not have because water quality is not better.’ I tell farmers they need to be cautious to make sure what they are doing is truly improving water quality so we don’t find ourselves in this predicament in 20 years.”
As Ohio agriculture begins to move down the path of water quality improvements, McGrath points out how important it is for farmers to be very involved with the process.
“In Ohio, regulations are being based upon direct water quality measurements, which is a positive. I think farmers always benefit when true science and true data are involved in the process. I know that some farmers are scared to get involved with this, but it really helps,” he said. “I always encourage farmers to be involved in the science and in the policy discourse. These broad laws across the state do not work for farmers and they do not work for improving water quality.”