{"id":5346,"date":"2013-06-20T08:58:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T12:58:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/?p=5346"},"modified":"2013-06-20T08:59:05","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T12:59:05","slug":"agriculture-secretary-announces-members-of-agricultural-certainty-oversight-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/press-release\/2013\/06\/20\/agriculture-secretary-announces-members-of-agricultural-certainty-oversight-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Agriculture Secretary Announces Members of Agricultural Certainty Oversight Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MDA<\/a>ANNAPOLIS, MD \u2013 Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance has announced member of the Agricultural Certainty Oversight Committee \u2013 the group that will develop the regulations necessary to implement the program and then continue to evaluate the program and make recommendations for moving forward.<\/p>\n

The Agricultural Certainty Program, which was passed by the General Assembly during the most recent legislative session, will allow farmers who voluntarily implement advanced best management practices (BMPs) to conduct their business without additional regulations for ten years. After ten years, however, farmers will have to be in full compliance with all regulations in effect at that time. The intention of the program is to help speed up Bay Restoration efforts by encouraging farmers to more quickly implement BMPs while providing them with a predictable regulatory environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe members of the Oversight Committee are proven experts and dedicated environmental and agricultural professionals who will bring a vast array of perspectives and experience to the important task before us,\u201d said Secretary Hance. \u201cI thank each of them for volunteering for this position and I look forward to working with them in the months ahead to make the Agricultural Certainty program the most effective and successful it can be..\u201d<\/p>\n

Members are:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2022 Ridgway Hall, attorney, Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Trey Hill, farmer, Rock Hall (Kent County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Lynne Hoot, Edgewater (Anne Arundel County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 David Kann, AET, Crop Consulting, Dover, PA<\/p>\n

\u2022 Drew Koslow, Choptank Riverkeeper, Easton (Talbot County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Wes Messick, Dorchester County Soil Conservation District Chairman<\/p>\n

\u2022 Doug Myers, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Annapolis (Anne Arundel County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Judith Marie O’Neil, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Cambridge (Dorchester County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Steuart Pittman, Dodon Farm Training Center, Davidsonville (Anne Arundel)<\/p>\n

\u2022 James Raley, Valentine\u2019s Delight Farm, Avenue (St. Mary\u2019s County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Denny Remsburg, Frederick\/Catoctin Soil Conservation District Manager<\/p>\n

\u2022 Paul Spies, Chester River Association, Cordova (Talbot County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Robert Stabler, farmer, Brookville (Montgomery County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Wayne Stafford, Cecil County Farm Bureau (Cecil County)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Ann Swanson, Chesapeake Bay Commission, Annapolis (Anne Arundel County)<\/p>\n

In addition to these members, the committee will include representatives who have not yet been selected from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Maryland Department of the Environment.<\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANNAPOLIS, MD \u2013 Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance has announced member of the Agricultural Certainty Oversight Committee \u2013 the group that will develop the regulations necessary to implement the program and then continue to evaluate the program and make recommendations for moving forward. The Agricultural Certainty Program, which was passed by the General Assembly during the  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_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":[503,555,590],"class_list":["post-5346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release","tag-agricultural-certainty","tag-chesapeake-bay-restoration","tag-oversight-committee"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5346"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5349,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5346\/revisions\/5349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/mda\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}