Farmers

Bel Air's new Marketplace on Main will open for the first time this coming Wednesday, May 8, in the town's new Main Street parking lot between the Sheriff's Office and the Main Street Tower restaurant and across from the courthouse. The Bel Air Downtown Alliance is a partner in the new outdoor market in partnership with The Town of Bel Air and The Mill of Bel Air. According to a news release from the alliance, Marketplace on Main will feature local growers and producers, artists from the Harford Artists Gallery, a delicious menu from Main Street Tower and a variety of weekly specials and promotions, including live entertainment.

Bel Air's new Marketplace on Main will open for the first time this coming Wednesday, May 8, in the town's new Main Street parking lot between the Sheriff's Office and the Main Street Tower restaurant and across from the courthouse. The Bel Air Downtown Alliance is a partner in the new outdoor market in partnership with The Town of Bel Air and The Mill of Bel Air. According to a news release from the alliance, Marketplace on Main will feature local growers and producers, artists from the Harford Artists Gallery, a delicious menu from Main Street Tower and a variety of weekly specials and promotions, including live entertainment.

When people walk into the huge rectangular building filled with row upon row of fish tanks, they almost always ask the two young farmers the same question: "Where did you get your degrees in marine biology?""We didn't," Randy Mattson says, laughing, looking down at the slimy rubber boots he once would have predicted would be wingtips. "We're not exactly farmers. We're businessmen."About two years ago, Mattson and his business partner, Scott Lee, were shrewd enough to spot a potential moneymaker.

Fells Point Farmers' Market returns on Saturday for its third season on Broadway Square. The opening day of the market's season will include a tribute to Michael D. "Mick" Kipp, the bartender and spice-maker known affectionately, and widely, as "Mick T. Pirate. " An empty stand will be set up at the market to honor Kipp, who died of a heart attack on Sunday. Market-goers will be able to leave tributes to Kipp in a memory book at the empty stand. There are changes this season to the market.

BROWN SUMMIT, N.C. -- Roy Cook cranked up the John Deere high-cycle tobacco sprayer, listening closely for any skips in the loud rumbling engine.The 42-year-old farmer hopes to fetch top dollar for the green-and-yellow rig in the recent farm equipment auction, a first-time event for the Guilford County Farmers Club and a signal of the uncertainty facing tobacco growers."

I strongly object to letter writer Rick Berman's views regarding the "humane" treatment of pregnant pigs ("Pregnant pigs treated humanely," Sept. 22). No reasonable person objects to pregnant pigs being kept in separate pens, but you don't need to be a pig farmer to realize that the gestation crates used by big agribusiness (euphemistically called "maternity pens" in Mr. Berman's letter) are cruel, no question about it. These iron-barred crates are so small they do not permit the pig to lie down or turn around, and the animals are confined inside them for months on end. Many pigs confined in these crates become so stressed that they resort to self-destructive behaviors.

The publication of the American Farm Bureau's response to the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to set a strict "pollution diet" for the Chesapeake Bay ( "Farmers group sues to block Chesapeake Bay cleanup plan," Jan. 9) provides us with an important opportunity to open up the dialogue between farmers, conservationists and policy makers. Last month, the Accokeek Foundation hosted a conference titled "Common Ground: Growing Agriculture, Restoring the Bay," in which these groups explored ways that profitability and environmental stewardship can go hand in hand.

Tim Wheeler's story "Heavy rains deter planting of cover crops" (Nov. 21) accurately states the effects of weather, grain markets, business costs and other logistics on a farmer's ability to plant cover crops. The O'Malley administration understands these challenges and has, year after year, listened to farmers, adapted the state's cover crop program to make it logistically and financially appealing, targeted resources for maximum results, approved all applications and committed record funding that has covered all payments promised to farmers.

A recent lawsuit filed by the American Farm Bureau Federation against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a slap in the face to the Chesapeake Bay. It is a cynical ploy to reverse years of hard work by farmers who want to do their part to help achieve clean water. And it comes just as a renewed sense of optimism is starting to emerge among all parties that the bay and its rivers can be restored. Polarization and conflict have trumped good sense and collegiality once again. Over the last year, the Farm Bureau has stood alone in its role as a massively funded national lobbying organization seemingly intent on frustrating progress toward clean water.

As a general rule, I am opposed to tax breaks that favor specific groups of taxpayers (e.g. those with mortgages, those who can afford to make generous charitable contributions or - my all time favorite - commuting federal government workers). However, in the case of estate tax breaks for farmers, I make an exception. Ideally, Maryland would eliminate or significantly reduce its onerous estate tax to stem the exodus of wealthy retirees to Florida and other states with no or low estate taxes.

Stacey Chambers has always been on the move. As a child, her nickname was Go Go, because she rarely slowed down. So it comes as little surprise that Chambers, 31, would wind up running a fashion boutique out of a bus. Chambers runs Go Go's Retread Threads (the name borrowed from her childhood moniker) out of a bus from the early '90s she's named Elsa, parking at farmers' markets, at festivals and on neighborhood streets to sell vintage clothes. Chambers started the business in 2010 after she heard a National Public Radio story about how small businesses run out of traditional storefronts were struggling.

Editor: Since its inception in 1970, Earth Day has led to enormous growth in understanding the consequences we face if we do not take care of our natural resources. It has led to more action to protect our planet's land, water, air, wildlife and human beings, and it has strengthened farmers' and ranchers' already strong commitment to being good environmental stewards. Farmers observe Earth Day every day. Where asphalt and pavement turn to gravel and dirt, you will find men and women rising early, greeting the day and working the earth.

Farming advocates are pressing Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski to reverse a little-noticed measure approved by Congress last month that rescinded tough new rules on the poultry industry - a move that has strained the already rocky relationship between mom-and-pop chicken farmers on the Eastern Shore and Salisbury-based Perdue. Under lobbying from the poultry industry, Congress quietly rolled back U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations that required chicken companies to give contract farmers 90 days' notice before yanking their business, mandated independent testing of scales used to weigh certain birds, and prohibited unfair or discriminatory business practices.

Among the likely Democratic candidates for Maryland governor in 2014 - Howard County executive Ken Ulman, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Attorney General Doug Gansler - Ulman comes closest to being the "Baltimore-area candidate. " But a genuine Baltimore-area candidate - someone who could pull votes from Baltimore County and the city, and enough in other key sectors of the state - would be a serious contender for the big-daddy chair in Annapolis. And who might that be? Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the six-term congressman and former Baltimore County executive, "is considering it," says his spokeswoman, Jaime Lennon.

Local farmer Rick Holloway and America's Farmers Grow Communities is supporting the Community Foundation of Harford County Inc. to help better serve the area. Sponsored by the Monsanto Fund, which is the philanthropic arm of Monsanto Company, Grow Communities provides eligible farmers the chance to win a $2,500 donation for a local nonprofit organization of their choice. Holloway selected Community Foundation of Harford County Inc. to receive the $2,500 donation. The foundation will use the donation for the Memorial Fund of Benjamin Boniface.

Cups of coffee warming their hands, the two women hovered over pansies. "I'm looking at the colors that remind me of my grandmother's garden. I'm deciding between the yellow and the white," said Malinda Peeples of Bolton Hill. "I'll probably get them both. " There was still a little room in her bags as Peeples made the rounds on Sunday, the first morning of the season at the city's farmers' market. "I got olive oil, milk, eggs and flour and cilantro. And we got our coffee, of course, at Zeke's," she said.

It defies all logic that a farm with 100 acres could harm the Chesapeake Bay more than a shopping center, apartment complex and attendant parking lots on 100 acres could do. Back when the bay was clean, we had more farms than we do now, and we had many less people with their cars, sewage treatment plants and garbage. Are farmers singled out as evil bay polluters ( "Faulty stewardship," Jan. 13) because there are fewer of us? We are good stewards of the land, and fortunately we have the voice of the American Farm Bureau to speak for us. Milly B. Welsh, Davidsonville

I applaud the action that Gov. Martin O'Malley has taken on the University of Maryland environmental law clinic and its legal pursuit of the Hudson farm family. There are now hundreds of farm families in Maryland that live in fear that they will be the next farm to be put in the brink of bankruptcy. The Hudsons made a mistake. The Maryland Department of Environment, the state's environmental protection agency, was involved, the problem was assessed, corrected and a fine was levied and paid.

The House of Delegates gave preliminary approval Friday to a bill that would give Maryland farmers a 10-year reprieve from new Chesapeake Bay cleanup requirements, in return for their voluntarily doing more to reduce polluted runoff from their fields. Lawmakers overwhelmingly rejected a series of amendments to SB1029 , including ones that would have limited the scope of the program to 50 farms for now, and that would have required participating farmers to disclose some information about their farms.

On Sunday, Thomas Albright will wake up early. Before 5 a.m., the patriarch of the Albright Farms family will be in his truck, driving from his farm in Monkton to the city, where Saratoga and Holliday streets meet underneath the Jones Falls Expressway. By 7 a.m., he'll see his first customers — friendly faces coming to buy Albright Farms' produce or meat, kicking off another season of the Baltimore Farmers' Market & Bazaar. Albright has participated in the market since 1979, just two years after it opened.