By Ashley Ellixson
Good morning! I hope everyone had a good week and is about to, or is already, enjoying their weekend with this beautiful weather. To round out the week in news updates, we have a list of case law updates, reminders, and more. Happy reading!
Agency Seeks Land for Agriculture Business Center. The Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission is looking for land to build a new agricultural business park and food innovation center somewhere in the region. SMADC held a series of open houses throughout Southern Maryland from June 30 through July 2 to spread awareness about the proposed center and hopefully attract contacts who could lead them to a plot of land in the region to develop. SMADC has been taking suggestions from farmers for several years to find out what facilities would work best in a proposed center, and now the organization feels it has sufficient information and enough farmers to make the center work. To read the full story click here: http://www.gazette.net/article/20150716/NEWS/150719679/1064&template=gazette
Missouri Sues USDA: Missouri has filed a lawsuit against USDA aimed at pushing back the acreage reporting deadline. Heavy rains have delayed planting in many areas of the state and producers were not able to file their acreage reports by the deadline making them ineligible for crop insurance. To read more http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/politics/2015/07/16/missouri-sues-usda-crop-insurance/30216467/.
Farm Fencing to Help the Bay Falling Short, Advocates Say. The Chesapeake Bay Commission says Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia should be doing more to get farmers to keep their animals away from waterways that flow into the troubled estuary. “The opportunity to reduce significant amounts of pollution is in front of us, if we exclude livestock from streams,” said Ann Swanson, the commission’s executive director. Putting up fencing and providing other places for animals to drink can reduce stream bank erosion and phosphorus pollution by roughly 80 percent, according to a study the commission cites in a recent report. Sediment and phosphorus are two of the pollutants blamed for causing algae blooms and a massive, fish-stressing “dead zone” in the bay every summer. To read more go here: http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/green/blog/bs-md-livestock-stream-pollution-20150722-story.html#page=1
VA Court Dismisses Bay Foundation’s Lawsuit: A Circuit Court has dismissed a lawsuit by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that sought to force VA to keep livestock out of streams. The circuit court disagreed that livestock dropping manure in the stream should be considered “applied.” To read more http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/article_9378e50e-934c-52ff-baf1-3150e854f4e1.html
Reminder Estimated ARC 2014 Payments: Reminder that Howard Leathers put together 2014 estimated ARC payments by commodity and county for Maryland. Read it here: http://go.umd.edu/ARECEstPay.
Register for the 2015 AALA Annual Meeting: The 2015 American Agricultural Law Association’s annual meeting will be held in Charleston, SC from Oct. 21 – 23. The meeting is always a great time for attorneys interested in being updated on current legal issues in agriculture. Find out more at http://aglaw-assn.org/annual-conference/.
The Food Safety Modernization Act Webinar: If you missed Thursday’s webinar, it will be available at https://vimeo.com/umaglaw/videos by the end of today. Learn about the Produce and Preventive Rules with Sarah Everhart and Ashley Newhall.
SIGN UP TODAY!:
August 6 at 12pm(EST) Environmental and Animal Agriculture webinar.