This funding announcement is part of USDA’s new ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ initiative which was launched in September 2009 to emphasize the need for a fundamental and critical reconnection between producers and consumers. ‘Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food’ includes such major agricultural topics as supporting local farmers and community food groups; strengthening rural communities; enhancing direct marketing and farmers’ promotion programs; promoting healthy eating; protecting natural resources; and helping schools connect with locally grown foods.

The grants were awarded through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA, formerly the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service) Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP). BFRDP is an education, training, technical assistance and outreach program designed to help U.S. farmers and ranchers, specifically those who have been farming or ranching for 10 years or fewer. Congress authorized the FY 2009 funding for this program in the 2008 Farm Bill, with another $19 million in mandatory funding for FY 2010. Under the program, USDA will make grants to organizations that will implement programs to help beginning farmers and ranchers.

Beginning farmers and ranchers interested in participating in any of the education, outreach, mentoring and/or internship activities are asked to contact UNL for more information.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the high court to review a lower court ruling that will otherwise impose Clean Water Act permitting requirements on the application of pesticides on, over or near water.

“Allowing the lower court ruling to stand would pose serious challenges to farmers battling pests,” said AFBF President Bob Stallman. “When pests strike, time is of the essence, and any length of time waiting for permit approval for products that are already approved would be disastrous.”

The problem stems from a January 2009 ruling by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck down a 2006 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that interpreted the Clean Water Act did not regulate most pesticide applications into, over or near “waters of the United States,” so long as the pesticide use complied with EPA’s requirements (such as EPA-approved label restrictions).

The Sixth Circuit found in “National Cotton Council v. EPA” that EPA must require Clean Water Act permits for pesticide application in water or near waters where pesticide falls into the water. The court recognized only a very narrow exception for chemical pesticides intentionally applied to water that leave no “residue” after their use is complete. AFBF’s petition seeks Supreme Court review of that decision.

The practical effect of the Sixth Circuit decision is that almost all pesticide applications directly to water, over water, or “near” water will require a Clean Water Act National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. If the decision is allowed to stand, farmers and others who use pesticides, such as mosquito abatement districts, will be required to obtain permits in order to apply pesticides on or near water. Since EPA views “waters of the United States” very broadly—including wetlands and even some ditches—the decision could affect hundreds of thousands of farmers.

In its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, AFBF argues that the EPA pesticide rule simply formalized how EPA and Congress have always addressed environmental regulation of pesticide use.

“Since Congress enacted the Clean Water Act in 1972, EPA has never subjected the use of pesticides to NPDES permitting,” explained Julie Anna Potts, the AFBF’s general counsel. “This court opinion dramatically changes the scope of the Clean Water Act and will force farmers, public health agencies, and many others into burdensome, time-consuming, and costly permitting requirements that could seriously impair their ability to use pesticides to protect croplands and public health.

“AFBF submitted its petition to the U.S. Supreme Court to seek correction of a decision that threatens very real consequences for crop protection and public health,” Potts said. “Right now, the Supreme Court is all that is standing between us and broad new restrictions that will obstruct essential, often time-critical responses to pest and disease outbreaks.”

In its petition, AFBF warns that “even slight delays caused by permit requirements can result in less effective crop protection, the spread of pests and disease, and significant crop loss.” The petition also explains that effective mosquito control through pesticide use is our nation’s best weapon against mosquito-borne disease, cautioning “anything that significantly curtails the use of pesticides in, over, and near waters threatens public health with outbreaks of West Nile virus, encephalitis, Dengue fever, and other mosquito-borne diseases.” The petition stresses that “few decisions in the history of the CWA have had such a far-reaching and disruptive impact.”

Responses to the AFBF petition, and friend-of-the-court briefs in support of the petition, will be due in early December. The Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to hear the case by the end of the year.

Health concerns abound in the United States?

 

By Robert Pore

In a recent commentary Nebraska Farm Bureau President Keith Olsen, he said that despite the state’s and the University of Nebraska’s need to cut the budget because of projected declines in revenue receipts to the state, the Global Water for Food Institute, announced by NU this spring, deserves to go forward.

Olsen, in his commentary, said that while it’s always tempting to delay new initiatives to preserve resources for existing, valued programs, it should not stop innovative ideas that carry clear promise of returning benefits for Nebraska, Nebraskans and the university.

“Nebraskans need it to go forward — because of the importance of water in our state, the water issues we’re facing, and emerging global water issues we are only beginning to learn about,” he said.

Olsen said agriculture uses 75 percent of the world’s freshwater resources. By 2050, he said the world population is projected to increase by 40 percent and the demand for food will double.

“We obviously cannot double available water to meet this need,” he said. “The International Food Policy Research Institute projects that if current consumption trends continue, the ag sector will experience serious water shortages by 2025, only 15 years from now.”

How irrigation is managed, Olsen said, will be key to whether future farmers have enough water to grow enough food.

“Nebraska leads the nation in number of irrigated acres and we rank fourth in food production among all states,” he said. “Because irrigation is central to Nebraska’s agriculture and economy and because of its political implications, we have a clear interest in learning about innovations worldwide that will help our farmers use water more efficiently. At the same time, our water resources, our expertise in center pivot irrigation and the existing UNL Water Center combine to make Nebraska an effective home for the Global Water for Food Institute.”

According to Olsen, the institute will draw on resources throughout the university to conduct research, provide education, and explore policy implications that affect water and food production worldwide. It will also host experts from around the world as visiting scholars to share what international researchers have learned about water use efficiency, political and economic effects of water decisions, developments in water law, and more, he said.

It will also host symposia and conferences, open to the public, where scientists, economists, politicians and futurists discuss, debate and collaborate. NU’s goal is for the institute to be the place where much of the world’s discussion on water and food takes place, Olsen said.

He said serving as home for the institute will enable Nebraska to be at the “cutting edge of both research and thinking about water and how it is used.”

For example, Olsen said international researchers and policy makers are beginning to speak in terms of the “water footprint” of food — the quantity of water that is used in producing everything that goes into growing food, from water itself to water consumed in producing crop inputs and farm machinery.

“Implications of this view are profound and we in Nebraska have not been part of this discussion. We very much need to be, and the Global Water for Food Institute will give us the opportunity,” Olsen said.

“When we talk about water for food, it’s important to remember that we are also talking about poverty and peace,” he continued. “Water shortages and food insufficiency are the root of many of the world’s armed conflicts. We in Nebraska have the opportunity to play a vital role in creating a more peaceful world by moving forward with the Global Water for Food Institute. We must do this, even when our own financial resources are stretched.”

Olsen hit the nail on the head when he said water for food production is key in helping eliminate poverty and promote peace. As Gov. Dave Heineman has pointed out, water will be the defining issue of the 21th century.

A new analysis by researchers at Oregon State University also emphasizes what Olsen and Heineman have said about water availability in the 21th century as the report said that “some of the worst battles of the next century may be over groundwater.”

According to the report, aquifers are being depleted much faster than they are being replenished in many places, wells are drying up, massive lawsuits are already erupting and the problems have barely begun.

“Aquifers that took thousands of years to fill are being drained in decades, placing both agricultural and urban uses in peril,” the report said. “Groundwater that supplies drinking water for half the world’s population is now in jeopardy.”

In dealing with future water problems, the report borrowed “heavily from lessons learned the hard way by the oil industry.”

“It’s been said that groundwater is the oil of this century,” said Todd Jarvis, associate director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds at OSU. “Part of the issue is it’s running out, meaning we’re now facing ‘peak water’ just the way the U.S. encountered ‘peak oil’ production in the 1970s. But there are also some techniques developed by the oil industry to help manage this crisis, and we could learn a lot from them.”

Jarvis, as an example, points to problems facing the Umatilla Basin of eastern Oregon, calling it a classic case of declining groundwater problems.

“In the northern half of Oregon from Pendleton to the Willamette Valley, an aquifer that took 20,000 years to fill is going down fast,” Jarvis said. “Some places near Hermiston have seen water levels drop as much as 500 feet in the past 50-60 years, one of the largest and fastest declines in the world.

“I know of a well in Utah that lost its original capacity after a couple years,” he said. “In Idaho people drawing groundwater are being ordered to work with other holders of stream water rights as the streams begin to dwindle. Mississippi has filed a $1-billion lawsuit against the City of Memphis because of declining groundwater. You’re seeing land subsiding from Houston to the Imperial Valley of California. This issue is real and getting worse.”

In the process, Jarvis said, underground aquifers can be irrevocably damaged – not unlike what happened to oil reservoirs when that industry pumped them too rapidly. Tiny fractures in rock that can store water, he said, sometimes collapse when it’s rapidly withdrawn, and then even if the aquifer had water to recharge it, there’s no place for it to go.

“The unitization concept the oil industry developed is built around people unifying their rights and their goals, and working cooperatively to make a resource last as long as possible and not damaging it,” Jarvis said. “That’s similar to what we could do with groundwater, although it takes foresight and cooperation.”

Water laws, Jarvis said, are often part of the problem instead of the solution.

A “rule of capture” that dates to Roman times, he said, often gives people the right to pump and use anything beneath their land, whether it’s oil or water. That’s somewhat addressed by the “first in time, first in right” concept that forms the basis of most water law in the West, but he said proving that someone’s well many miles away interferes with your aquifer or stream flow is often difficult or impossible. And there are 14 million wells just in the United States, tapping aquifers that routinely cross state and even national boundaries.

Regardless of what else takes place, Jarvis said, groundwater users must embrace one concept the oil industry learned years ago – the “race to the pump” serves no one’s best interest, whether the concern is depleted resources, rising costs of pumping or damaged aquifers.

One possible way out of the conundrum, experts say, is maximizing the economic value of the water and using it for its highest value purpose. But even that will take new perspectives and levels of cooperation that have not often been evident in these disputes, Jarvis said. Government mandates, he said, may be necessary if some of the “unitization” concepts are to be implemented. Existing boundaries may need to be blurred, and ways to share the value of the remaining water identified.

“Like we did with peak oil, everyone knows were running out, and yet we’re just now getting more commitment to alternative energy sources,” Jarvis said. “Soon we’ll be facing peak water, the only thing to really argue over is the date when that happens. So we will need new solutions, one way or the other.”