|
|
|
Down on the Farms
New, more stringent environmental constraints place profit pressures on Connecticut farmers
|
Business New Haven
3/20/2000
By: Abigail White
|
The first farmers in Connecticut were concerned about the amount of grain that bore fruit relative to the amount they sowed. For them, seed was the scarce resource.
More recently, the concerns of those in agriculture are focused on a broader array of issues: water and air quality, wildlife habitat, open space preservation. Taken together these have environmental impacts beyond the farm.
Everything from which chemicals can be used for fertilizers and pesticides to soil erosion and nutrient runoff are now watched and monitored for how they affect the overall conditions of the environment. Protecting environmental resources has become the latest responsibility to be added to the business of agriculture.
The backdrop to this picture is a market environment where commodity surpluses are driving prices down while the federal government is trying to wean farmers off of income supports that have been in place since the 1930s.
Under the 1996 Farm Act, the role of government is to help farmers increase and enhance their access to international markets while following a program of decreasing yearly income support payments, which are expected to end in 2002.
Much of the current interest lies in the new and stricter water-quality rules expected to come this year from court cases filed and settled over the last decade.
“Environmental groups brought court cases against the Environmental Protection Agency for not enforcing the Clean Water Act on the farmers,” explains Richard Meinert, a cooperative extension educator with the University of Connecticut. “Their defense was that 1), they couldn't identify how much pollution farmers were causing because it was masked by some of these other [pollution] sources; and 2), they didn't know what to do about it.
“We know things will change rapidly and dramatically, and we want to get in there and do the best thing we know with the technology we have,” says Meinert.
“The explanation we're giving farmers is that, in the past you could get away with pointing your finger at big business and big industry and say they're the polluters, because it masked anything the farmers did. Now that we've gotten the big polluters out of the rivers and streams, we can see what's left. That's what is happening.”
Meinert empathizes with the economic squeeze many farmers face. “When you have those kinds of economic pressures, it's tough to get someone to change their management for something that's going to cost them more money,” he says. “So what we've done is partnered with the federal government with some cost-sharing incentive programs.
“The federal government is actually taking some of the risk of manure management away from the farmers and paying them a certain dollar amount not to exceed a certain amount per year,” Meinert says. “We can get some data to see how much it's really going to cost them.”
Animal manure is a source of phosphorous, which in soils saturated beyond what crops can absorb as nutrients eventually gets carried into a source of water. Algae blooms occur as these plants proliferate in the presence of this phosphorous nutrient and causes less-dissolved oxygen levels needed in water quality standards.
“The economic incentive for the farmers is to spread the manure as close to home as possible to get rid of it,” says Meinert. “We're trying to get the environmental sensitivity in this so [farmers] will realize that it makes more sense to move it away even if though it's going to cost them more money.”
That's easier said than done. “It's a hard sell because the economic reality is that we have farmers who will tell you that they're making decisions every day as to whether they put money into their crops, into their animals or food on the table,” Meinert says.
One industry directly benefiting from efforts to improve the state's water quality is aquaculture, the business of farm-raising aquatic plants and fish. In Connecticut it includes farmed oysters and clams for wholesale distribution and farm-raised trout and bass for stock.
According to the state's Department of Agriculture, during the next decade aquaculture is expected to be among the top the growth industries in the nation and the fastest-growing agricultural business.
Connecticut leads the Northeast in aquaculture production by virtue of its oyster industry, which harvests $50 to $60 million worth of oysters annually.
With an increase in dissolved oxygen present in improved bodies of water, the number of farming operations is likely to continue to grow in the state. A recent study by the nonprofit group Save the Sound rated the quality of water in Long Island Sound as better in 1999 than the previous year. The annual study uses the levels of dissolved oxygen as an indicator of overall water quality.
“We're seeing opportunities to sell to countries in the Pacific Rim,” says John Volk, director of the Bureau of Aquaculture in the state's Department of Agriculture. “There's a tremendous demand for seafood by those folks. “Japan used to buy virtually all the oysters that Korea would produce,” Volk says, “and now they're shutting those doors because they've run into environmental contamination problems in Korea. The buyers from Japan visited and inspected all the oyster growing areas throughout the West, and Connecticut was the state that was selected to supply them with oysters.”
State aquaculture sales includes operations such as growing shellfish on underwater leases in Long Island Sound, as well as raising trout and hybrid bass in inland freshwater tanks.
“It's really an area that the state is giving a lot of attention to,” Volk says. “With so many of our natural resources that have been over-harvested, people are realizing we have to start farming these aquatic animals and plants to insure the future of high-quality supply of product.”
The Bureau of Aquaculture is working on growing the aquaculture industry through an array of initiatives: through technology transfer at its laboratories, by overseeing legislation and regulating aquaculture permits and operations, and by promoting and marketing increased consumption of aquaculture products.
Currently more than 52,000 acres are leased for farming in state waters, with the average size for an oyster farm being approximately 30 acres. The Aquaculture Bureau also monitors coastal quality to determine levels of bacteria, toxins and incidences of paralytic shellfish poisoning. Where necessary it will close shellfish areas where the shellfish are deemed unsafe for human consumption.
Continuing efforts to reduce or eliminate industrial wastes in rivers and estuaries, as well as modernizing sewage-treatment plants along the coastline have helped Connecticut improve and revitalize its aquaculture industries.
Beyond efforts to improve the quality of the state's agricultural resources with environmental initiatives, challenges still remain in managing production levels and market surpluses. Investments in seed, plants and young animals are made yearly as well as investments in advanced technology. Once the harvesting and collecting is done, the questions the farmer must ask are: What is the supply for this product in the market, and what is its price?
Competition both regionally and globally has resulted in unusually large surpluses causing market prices to hit record lows, with commodities like dairy and soybeans seeing 1932 prices in today's market.
“This is kind of a weak year; there was a huge crop of fruit in New England,” says fruit grower Dave Henry from Blue Hills Farm in Wallingford. Blue Hills Farm grows apples, pears, peaches, plums and nectarines in its orchards and sells them to various fruit markets and juice makers.
With regard to the environment, Henry says his farm is using fewer chemicals all the time. He also says Blue Hills is removing old trees and replacing them with young dwarf trees, which produce a higher quality of fruit per acre.
“We also added another atmosphere-control room, so we're up to five now,” says Henry. “The atmosphere-control rooms help to keep the apples hard. We ship several hundred tons of fruit to juice processors like Veryfine, and we export a considerable amount of our produce to Great Britain.”
The bad news is that “The export market is weak for apples. France had a huge crop, and that has brought the price down very low. The whole apple market is soft [though] the other fruits are okay. Right now they are out of season, so we'll tell next September how they are going to be.”
The outlook for Connecticut agriculture mirrors that of other states in this transition time of finding new, competitive market strategies.
Market prices will remain the depressed as long as market surpluses endure. International trade issues will keep the pressure on certain countries to eliminate current trade barriers so Connecticut exports will grow and presumably level some of the surpluses.
Further water-quality regulations are currently being proposed that will affect farm operations that involve the disposal of large quantities of manure produced on farmlands. And continued improvements in overall water quality promise brighter days for Connecticut aquaculture.
In all, lower profits will challenge many farmers' ability to make the changes necessary to reduce harmful environmental impacts.
|
Go FirstGo PreviousGo
NextGo LastGo
to Index
|
|
