Farmers

The Carroll County Forestry Board will hold an Invasive Species Workshop from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 13 at Bear Branch Nature Center, 300 John Owings Road, Westminster. Invasive plants can alter the ecosystem and wildlife habitats. Participants can learn to identify and control non-native plants with experienced forestry volunteers. The cost is $10. Participants should take a lunch; drinks and snacks will be supplied. Dress for outdoor activities. Registration is required by Friday at 410-848-9290 or dbaker@dnr.

Public can create a cleaner harbor The sight of a harbor littered with thousands of dead, floating fish prompts visions of a great curse or an apocalypse ("Algae bloom worries experts," June 10). And indeed, much of the vitality of our city depends on the harbor, as is evidenced by the growth of neighborhoods bordering the water and the flocks of tourists who visit those areas. So why is our harbor in such bad shape? Is a harbor covered with trash and dead fish the best we can do? The trash filter at Harris Creek in Canton collects more than three tons of trash a month.

Farmers have a big stake in the special session of the General Assembly called by Gov. Martin O'Malley to close a $1.7 billion state budget deficit. Money for agricultural land preservation would be cut drastically, and funding for cover crops would be slashed if lawmakers are unable to reach an agreement on new revenue sources to close the gap, said state Agriculture Secretary Roger L. Richardson. His warnings were included in a letter to farmers alerting them to some of the proposed reductions and how agriculture would be affected.

The modern farm has computers, satellites and biotechnology, none of which can produce the one thing it needs most: rain. And because farmers in central and western Maryland generally don't irrigate, this spring's drought has hit hard.While they can't make it rain, government officials and farmers are working together to limit the drought's impact, said Cone Byler-Hsu, a program manager with the Maryland office of the Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency.There are some ways to deal with drought, extension agents say, such as planting short-season varieties of corn and soybeans, but it can be a gamble if the whole season is dry.Those who plant corn and soybeans to feed their cattle have to consider options such as feeding more hay, but that has the drawback of reducing milk production, and therefore, income.

The plentiful rainfall of August could help Carroll County and central Maryland farmers revive their pastures and get a better cutting of hay, but it comes too late to save the corn crop or undo other damage, farmers and agriculture officials say.Baltimore City and the surrounding counties received between 0.5 and 3.3 inches above the average rainfall for August.Carroll County received an average of 5.4 inches of rain this month, 2.2 inches above normal, according to the National Weather Service and Maryland Agricultural Statistics.

The 40-year-old red tractor won't start. Flea beetles attacked the cabbage. The broccoli was stunted and bitter. Drought killed all but 50 of 2,000 newly planted strawberry plants, and the would-be new well came up dry at 510 feet.It has been the kind of season that might send a conventional farmer into debt and despair. But except for long days in the hot sun, there's not much conventional about Cromwell Valley CSA. Not the four full-time farmers, children of the suburbs who include a former clinical psychologist.

The landmark Freedom to Farm Act enacted three years ago aimed to get the federal government out of agriculture and eliminate farm subsidies. Fat chance.This year's farm bill, which President Clinton is eager to sign, includes more than $8 billion for farmers who endured floods and drought -- but mainly cyclical low market prices. Worse than the philosophical retreat, the bill would mostly benefit the largest, richest farmers -- not the small farmers with the most desperate needs.The emergency aid passed by the House last week adds to the $16.6 billion in subsidies earmarked for farmers under the "market transition" program of the 1996 law. It does so without regard to farmer crop loss or financial need.

Saying he is concerned about the effects of big agricultural corporations on the state's family farmers, House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. has asked Gov. Parris N. Glendening to study the economic conditions for farmers in Maryland who raise hogs and poultry for large companies.Taylor's request followed a three-part series in The Sun that chronicled the plight of the nation's contract chicken farmers, who increasingly find themselves deep in debt, their fortunes dependent on a group of large, powerful poultry companies that set the pay and the rules.

For one week a year, anyone in Carroll County can eat like a farmer.But it wasn't always so. Just five years ago, the kitchen at the Carroll County 4-H Fair was serving up limp cold cuts and rubbery burgers.Then Nona Schwartzbeck took charge. She and an obedient cadre of volunteers turn out hand-made chicken pies, spaghetti with meat sauce and barbecued pork and chicken.The meals are built around a bounty of meat and vegetables donated by farmers, drawing between 400 and 900 people a day during the weeklong fair, which runs through Saturday morning at the Carroll County Agricultural Center in Westminster.

A hundred years ago, when Calvin Wade's grandfather started planting rye grass to hold down his soil over the fall and winter, he didn't know he was helping the Chesapeake Bay.Now, farmers know that planting cover crops is one way to keep fertilizer nutrients from running off into streams. Many of them volunteer to follow detailed plans to keep nutrients out of the bay.The state is about to publish rules that will insist all farmers do so, and it will inspect them periodically to make sure they comply.

Farmers' markets * The Riva Road Farmers' Market is open 7 a.m. to noon Saturdays through Dec. 19 at the corner of Riva Road and Harry S. Truman Parkway, Annapolis. It also is open from 7 a.m. to noon Tuesdays until Oct. 27. Events include a Harvest Festival in October and a Holiday/Christmas Festival in early December. Information: 410-349-0317. * The indoor Westfield Annapolis Farmers' Market is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays through Oct. 25 on the first level of the Nordstrom parking garage at the mall.

Twice a year, Liz Reitzig drives 2 1/2 hours to a Pennsylvania farm, then heads back home to Bowie with half a cow in the minivan. Closer to home, she regularly meets a farmer in a parking lot to buy whole chickens. Fish comes straight from a Baltimore County guy who casts nets in Alaska and brings the catch back frozen. She picks up eggs at somebody's driveway and produce at the farmers' market. She hasn't been to a conventional supermarket for years. "I would say about 80 to 90 percent of our food is coming direct from farmers," said Reitzig, 29, a stay-at-home mother of four.

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.

Jack Kidwell watches his six-man crew lay the strips of sod that will cover the field for M&T Bank Stadium's first soccer game next week with the peaceful air of a farmer who knows his land has been well-tilled. "I've been doing this for 50 years," says Kidwell, 76, a native of tiny Boydton, Va., in a drawl as gentle as a Tidewater breeze. "You learn a few things in that time. One of them is it takes time to do this and do it right." Kidwell is founder, president and co-owner of Duraturf Service Corp.

Garlic scapes, the scrapple of vegetables, have gone gourmet. Scapes are the flowering, curly, central stalk of the garlic plant, and growers snip them off around this time of year so the plant puts energy into the bulb instead of the bud. After that, scapes used to land in the compost pile - or perhaps on the plate of an especially frugal farmer, the sort who came up with scrapple because he didn't want to let perfectly good hog offal go to waste....

Five weeks after a dry winter dropped Maryland into an official drought and the state's farmers and hydrologists began wringing their hands, it's over. "Right after we put out the press release ... it started raining," said Daniel J. Soeder, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. "But hey, if that's what it takes to end a drought, it works for me." After the driest first three months of a year on record for Baltimore, abundant rains in April have now sloshed over into May, he said.

The cows, about 75 of them, graze and enjoy an unseasonably warm day on the 260-acre Bellevale farm in Baltimore County, about 20 miles north of downtown. It's a few hours until milking time. Together they produce hundreds of gallons of raw milk that is sold to organic milk producer Horizon for about $3 a gallon. It's pasteurized and turned into cartons sold at the grocery store. Part of farmer Bobby Prigel thinks that's a shame. There are enough people in Maryland who would pay $6 a gallon or more for the unpasteurized, or raw, milk directly from him - if that were legal.

There will be a corn crop next year and farmers will continue plowing their fields, milking their cows, feeding their chickens and selling their goods at market. But I won't be around to report on it. The newspaper is ending this weekly farm column. As I look back over a long career, I think about the respect I developed for farmers. They work hard and work smart or they don't survive. They are part of the largest industry in the state. They feed us at a fraction of the cost of food in other nations while constantly battling the uncontrollable threats of Mother Nature.

Despite a serious drought, 2007 will not be remembered as a bad year by many Maryland farmers. Cash receipts (sales at the farm level) jumped 25 percent to just short of $2 billion in 2007. A more meaningful number, net farm income, rose nearly 22 percent to $724.9 million last year, according to the Maryland Department of Agriculture's summary of farming in 2007, released last week. Looking back on 2007, it seems that what Mother Nature took away in the form of lower production because of drought was offset by a favorable commodities market.

In 19th-century Harford County, a common occurrence for this time of year was a husking bee. The corn cutting, shocking and husking was a backbreaking task for farmers, taking six or more weeks each fall. One way farmers lightened the workload was to invite their neighbors to a husking bee. The men gathered in the barn, while the women prepared a fall feast. The men would have contests to see who could husk a basket of corn first. The younger men, if they were lucky to find a red ear of corn, could kiss a girl before dinner.