Agriculture

No single source of pollution has contaminated the Chesapeake Bay over the years. If the nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that have fouled its waters came from one place — a handful of urban wastewater treatment plants, for example — the problem would be relatively easy to correct. But the reality is that most every human activity — from where we build our shopping centers to how we commute or choose to dispose or our trash — has consequences for water quality.

Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. used the opening of the area's newest farmers market to announce he has appointed Chris McCollum director of county's $10 million agricultural center, which opens in Hunt Valley in September. Baltimore County Executive James T. Smith Jr. used the opening of the area's newest farmers market to announce he has appointed Chris McCollum director of the county's $10 million agricultural center, which opens in Hunt Valley in September. "Chris will do an excellent job managing this important facility and will provide the vision and leadership that will quickly establish it as a true focal point for local agriculture here and throughout the region," Smith said.

Entering the fourth decade of a massive effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay's health, how do we keep "hiding" tens of millions of pounds of a well-documented water pollutant? We do it with the complicity of a national network of influential agricultural scientists who care less about water quality than about helping farmers avoid the gigantic disposal problem they face with excess manure. The dilemma for the watershed's poultry and livestock farmers is stark: To get enough nitrogen on fields to grow a crop, they must spread manure in amounts that build up phosphorus in the soil so excessively that it runs off and pollutes waterways, even if the farmer employs otherwise sound conservation practices.

Farmers and ranchers across the country have long known what many Americans are just now learning. The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is a political machine masquerading as an umbrella organization for local humane societies. While most local humane societies perform a much-needed service in their local communities, the national organization is run by vegetarians with an extreme anti-meat agenda. The HSUS markets itself as an animal care organization but spends less than 1 percent of its $100 million annual budget in hands-on pet shelters.

Hereford High School freshman Marshall Feinberg pulled on blue rubber gloves and began snipping at the slippery skin of a raw chicken wing. "Wish I was Edward Scissorhands right now," he said to lab partner Paul LaMonica, who held down the wing as he continued cutting. The students were starting a lab meant to give them an up-close look at animal muscles, tendons and bones, in a new animal science class. Baltimore County's Hereford High is one of four high schools in Maryland participating in a pilot that is also being tested in nine other states.

Hereford High School freshman Marshall Feinberg pulled on blue rubber gloves and began snipping at the slippery skin of a raw chicken wing. "Wish I was Edward Scissorhands right now," he said to lab partner Paul LaMonica, who held down the wing as he continued cutting. The students were starting a lab meant to give them an up-close look at animal muscles, tendons and bones, in a new animal science class. Baltimore County's Hereford High is one of four high schools in Maryland participating in a pilot that is also being tested in nine other states.

Federal officials have named 10 Maryland counties agricultural disaster areas because of grain crop losses due to a fungal infestation blamed on last spring's heavy rains. State Agriculture Secretary Earl F. "Buddy" Hance said wheat and barley losses ranged from 30 percent to 55 percent. Farmers in the 10 designated primary counties, and in adjacent counties, are eligible to apply for assistance from the U.S. Farm Service Agency. The primary counties include Baltimore, Carroll, Cecil, Harford, Howard, Kent, Montgomery, Queen Anne's, Talbot and Washington.

Baltimore County will build a $9 million agriculture center in Hunt Valley that will offer office and meeting space as well as classrooms, greenhouses and demonstration fields for groups now spread throughout the area. Officials said the Baltimore County Center for Maryland Agriculture, located on a 149-acre property just west of Interstate 83 on Shawan Road, will extend the county's commitment to farming. The county purchased the land from the Tillman family, which had operated a horse farm and boarding business there.

One student butchered a sheep for her senior project. Another went on to study animal husbandry. Still more found work on vegetable farms. Professor Hugh Pocock taught them all, not at a land grant university but at Maryland Institute College of Art. For reasons ranging from highbrow theories of art and social justice to booming farmers' markets, young people with no background in agriculture are going into the field. And quite a few of them are artists. "A lot of us didn't set out to farm for a living, to have that be what we did all day," said Greg Strella, 24, who came to MICA to become a sculptor and graduated a farmer.

SALARY: $46,000 AGE: 29 TIME ON THE JOB: 6 months How she got started: : Amy Crone graduated from Cornell University with a degree in government and Latin-American relations. She went on to earn a graduate degree from American University in international development. Most recently she worked as a research and policy analyst for the Center for Global Development, a nonprofit think tank in Washington. She researched ways to administer foreign assistance to developing nations. During her off hours, she managed the FRESHFARM Market in Annapolis.