As Fall Arrives, an Update on Ag Initiatives

Published September 2016 in Lancaster Farming

It is hard to believe that with temperatures still hitting 90-degrees that summer is winding down, fall is on the way, and school has started, but here we are.

Homegrown School Lunch Week

The start of the new school year makes us focus on Homegrown School Lunch Week, which is Sept. 19-23 in Maryland. This is a component of our Farm to School Program and encourages school districts to bring more locally grown foods into Maryland school lunches and recognizes the efforts that each system is making.

The “Farm to School” program strives to bring locally produced foods into school cafeterias as much as possible, to teach student where their food comes from, how it is produced and the benefits of healthy eating. It also provides hands-on learning activities by bringing students to visit farms, inviting producers to visit schools and to encourage students to participate in school gardening and culinary classes. It also expands markets for farmers.

A very important component of this program is that it helps incorporate educational lessons about local food and nutrition for Maryland students – an important endeavor as more and more students live further away from farm life.

In Maryland, there are more than 2 million acres in farmland and more than 12,000 farms. More than 70 million lunches and 24 million breakfasts are served in Maryland schools annually. We have done a good job, so far, here in Maryland where school systems spend $18 million on local food served in schools, according a recent USDA Farm to School Census.  And Maryland was also the first state in the nation to have every public school system participate in Maryland Homegrown School Lunch Week.

If Maryland products aren’t on the menus of your local schools, ask the school cafeteria managers to include some. And if they need help finding local products, call our Marketing Office and we can help them locate local producers. I encourage you to learn more about www.marylandfarmtoschool.org

Celebrating The Accomplishments of Bay Area Farmers

It was my pleasure to join with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack last week in recognizing the outstanding work and significant investments that farmers and forest landowners in the Chesapeake Bay watershed have made to improve water quality across the watershed. We were also fortunate to be able to meet and talk with Maryland Farm Bureau members, soil conservation district personnel, members of various commodity groups and, of course, our colleagues at USDA and NRCS about their concerns and challenges when implementing conservation projects.

I am very proud that Maryland farmers are on the forefront of Bay conservation and restoration efforts. Our farmers have continuously stepped up to meet the goals set before them, which have become increasing more challenging.

Last week, USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service released a progress report called “Agricultural Lands Key to A Health Chesapeake Bay. “ The report details the many investments farmers have made to improve the health of the Bay through voluntary conservation measures. For instance, 99 percent of agricultural land in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has at least one conservation practice on it, and many have more than one. The report also states that that, it reports that, from 2006 to 2011, improved nutrient management has reduced the loss of nitrogen by 38 percent and phosphorus by 45 percent.  And Maryland farmers planted over 492,000 acres of cover crops on their fields in fall 2015 which prevented an estimated 2.95 million pounds of nitrogen and 98,500 pounds of phosphorus from washing into Maryland waterways. I encourage all of you to read the progress report. You can download it online here: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detailfull/national/programs/initiatives/?cid=stelprdb1047323

Palmer amaranth

Finally, I encourage all farmers and land owners to get up to speed on Palmer Amaranth, an aggressive, invasive pigweed native to the desert regions of the southwest United States which has taken root in Maryland. It is resistant to both glyphosate (Roundup) and ALS type herbicides, and it can grow more than two inches a day.

I have written about this weed in this column before because it is establishing itself more and more in Maryland and has the potential to threaten our cropping systems. It is one of the most troublesome weeds that we know and aggressive steps are necessary to minimize its impact.

For information, or assistance with identifying or controlling Palmer amaranth, please contact your local extension agent.