There are good reasons why people at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation say that, given a choice, they would rather see farmland stay farmland than be turned into residential development. That's because farms create less pollution for the bay than homes and commercial development, foundation officials say.
This is the primary reason for the warming of relationships between officials of the foundation and farmers, and it can be traced back to early 2006.
For years, the foundation blamed farmers for the bay's declining health. The environmental group acknowledges that that was a mistake. It is now working with farm organizations to improve the profitability of farms so that farmers can continue to work the land.
Unfortunately, the farmers' voice was not as loud at legislative hearings in the General Assembly in past years. And farmers were not being given fair credit for their conservation achievements.
That is beginning to change.
During a presentation last month at a symposium sponsored by the University of Baltimore School of Law, Bill Satterfield, executive director of the Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc., outlined some of the environmental benefits of keeping farmers on the farm.
Satterfield said people who believe that agricultural land contributes more pollution than urban areas would be surprised by the words of Robert Summers, deputy secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment, at a meeting of the Maryland Board of Public Works in May 2007.
Summers provided data showing that agricultural land contributes from 20 percent to 25 percent less nitrogen than developed lands.
Satterfield pointed out that the Delmarva chicken industry has been shrinking, while the human population in the Chesapeake Bay watershed has been increasing.
"If you look at the September 2007 EPA Chesapeake Bay Program report, 'Development Growth Outpacing Progress in Watershed Efforts to Restore the Chesapeake Bay,' you'll see that cumulatively throughout the watershed, agriculture trails human-caused contributions of nitrogen and phosphorus to the bay in 2005."
Human-caused sources of pollution include wastewater, septic and urban runoff.
Satterfield said these human sources of pollution put more nitrogen into the bay than agriculture, by a margin of 44 percent for development versus 40 percent for agriculture. For phosphorus, it's 52 percent for development versus 45 percent for agriculture.
