2022 Spring Farm Outlook

Page 12 Spring 2022 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March / April 2022 Spring 2022 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March / April 2022 Page 13 contaminants from their sources to their final destinations, causing death to all sea life in the areas of contamination. Producers at that ag breakfast could imagine their farms being invaded by hoards of EPA agents roaming around their farm fields, investigating every retention pond, puddle and grassy waterway for standing water that contained contaminants; or as demonstrated during the provocative slideshow showing aerial view maps of farm underground tiles created by ground penetrating radar (GPR) satellite surveillance, making their lives miserable and expensive. The main message: lots more regulation was on the horizon. The Obama WOTUS implementation was to be in full force by 2015. This gave ag industry individuals pause to consider how miserable the EPA could make their lives by enforcing WOTUS. And in the manner that the ag industry always responds to a challenge, different segments of the industry moved on making fundamental changes. The Fertilizer Institute issued new guidelines for fertilizer applications and rates. Implement manufacturers and machinery manufacturers modified their machines and invented some new machines to distribute fertilizers and chemicals at the root zone rather than broadcast. The chemical pesticide industry revamped their protocols, and even the most stubborn and stolid producers took heed and altered their practices, and motivated by significant increases in costs, helped to make the decision to use less inputs more efficiently. Ag groups helped to lead producers in rethinking sustainable practices by bringing greater efficiency, less inputs and higher profits into focus. Programs like maximum return to nitrogen (MRTN) replaces highest yield competition with greatest profit, and the 4 R’s of nitrogen management - right source, right rate, right time, and right place that help keep nutrients on and in the field; all result in benefits to the farmer and to the environment. By 2015 some differences were noticeable. Input costs were lower. With less anhydrous being injected, outlying filtration ponds with farm tiles noted less duckweed and algae. Fertilizer and chemical dealers began offering advanced services like field mapping, soil sampling and other processes to optimize growth while limiting costs. Under the WOTUS threat, the industry had become self- regulating through innovation. Continue 8 M arch 22, 2012: A large jovial crowd at the Logan County Ag Breakfast had just finished eating when the invited speaker stepped up to the mic and began addressing the crowd on a subject that made the hearers’ jaws drop. They lost their cheerful demeanor and the entire room fell into abject silence. The subject of her speech: WOTUS. WOTUS is an acronym for Waters of the United States (WOTUS) and is an extension of The Clean Water Act. Concern for the planet was one of the major Democrat Presidential platforms during the 2008 presidential election. After winning the election, an ambitions plan was drawn up by the EPA during the Obama administration to alter how all individuals, businesses and government bodies treated the water in the U.S. Their concern was what was then a 50,000 square mile (and growing) DEAD ZONE in the Gulf of Mexico caused primarily by chemical pollutants that were carried to the gulf by every river, creek, stream, ditch and grassy waterway. And farmers were high on the EPA’s list as major contributors to this problem. When you look at the dead zone, you will see what looks like normal sea water. You can swim in it, you can go boating, surfing and kayaking in it. It doesn’t appear any different to the naked eye. But the water has been so altered by all the chemical contaminants that it contains no life sustaining oxygen and all fish who enter the dead zone will either be repelled or suffer death, and all motionless or slow moving bottom dwellers die. The EPA ambitiously planned to hire thousands of new agents who would routinely inspect every puddle, retention pond, ditch, stream, creek and river to seek out the sources of this pollution and levy huge fines against those who they believed were causing these polluting problems. The goal was to eradicate the Gulf dead zone problem within 20 years. At the heart of the WOTUS theory was the inherent belief that every drop of water that falls from the sky ultimately finds its way into the oceans surrounding the U.S., carrying with it chemical WOTUS: Then and now Continue 8