{"id":1618,"date":"2010-04-13T15:05:04","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T15:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/?p=1618"},"modified":"2012-10-02T15:07:22","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T15:07:22","slug":"governor-omalley-signs-agriculture-bills-into-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2010\/04\/13\/governor-omalley-signs-agriculture-bills-into-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor O’Malley Signs Agriculture Bills into Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Culmination of a Positive Legislative Session for Farming<\/em> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

ANNAPOLIS, MD (April 13, 2010) \u2013 Governor Martin O\u2019Malley today signed into law five agriculture-related bills as the culmination of a positive legislative session for the farm community.\u00a0 The bills signed today provide more opportunities for landowners to preserve their farmland; increase penalties for veterinary violations; and, authorize the Agriculture Secretary to quarantine farmland and agricultural products with chemical or radiological contamination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking closely with the General Assembly this session, we passed important legislation to expand, enhance, and sustain Maryland’s agriculture industry to keep our State smart, green and growing,\u201d said Governor O’Malley.\u00a0 \u201cPart of our core mission is to strengthen our family owned farms and businesses and to protect our environment. These bills move Maryland forward helping farm businesses remain profitable, so that the next generation will see farming as a viable career opportunity, and Maryland will preserve its open space and locally-grown food supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very pleased by this year\u2019s legislative session and are already working to get these laws up and running,\u201d said Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance. \u201cWe thank Governor O\u2019Malley, the General Assembly, the farm community and the citizens who pushed for passage of these bills.\u00a0 Their support shows that more people are recognizing how important agriculture is to their lives.\u201d
\nAgriculture-related bills signed today are:<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SB 62, which directs revenue collected for licensing and inspecting horse stables to the Maryland Horse Industry Fund to help promote and protect the industry. It also increases the fees for licensing and inspecting horse stables from $75 to $125 to cover the cost of the administration of the program.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 SB 81, which gives the State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners the authority to increase the civil penalty for a licensee from $5,000 to $10,000 for any violation of Board laws or regulations in addition to suspension or revocation of a license.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SB 82, which clarifies definitions in Maryland\u2019s Commercial Feed Law to be more consistent with the broadly-endorsed American Association of Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) Model Bill and Regulations.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SB 90, which provides the Secretary of Agriculture with the authority to quarantine farmland and agricultural products and stop-sale on-farm agricultural products that have been contaminated by a chemical or radiological material or agent after consultation with the Governor and the Secretaries of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Environment.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SB 95, which gives the Board of Trustees of the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation explicit authority to acquire preservation easements on farmland in partnership with outside public and private entities.<\/p>\n

To see a full listing of bills signed by Governor O\u2019Malley, visit www.gov.state.md.us<\/a> and to see all bills considered by the 2010 General Assembly log onto www.mlis.state.md.us<\/a>. The \u201c90-Day Report\u201d on the Maryland General Assembly\u2019s website is organized by subject area for easier reference.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Follow MDA on Twitter @MdAgDept<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culmination of a Positive Legislative Session for Farming ANNAPOLIS, MD (April 13, 2010) \u2013 Governor Martin O\u2019Malley today signed into law five agriculture-related bills as the culmination of a positive legislative session for the farm community.\u00a0 The bills signed today provide more opportunities for landowners to preserve their farmland; increase penalties for veterinary violations; and,  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1619,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions\/1619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}