Poultry Industry

According to Wicomico County Executive Richard M. Pollitt Jr. ("So what if O'Malley emails with Perdue lawyer," May 13), "[n]ot only is our entire region and state helped by the economics of the chicken industry, but so is our environment. " How could he possibly arrive at that conclusion? The data tells quite a different story. Maryland crop and livestock production combined has constituted about 0.35 percent of the state's Gross Domestic Product for the past decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis at the Commerce Department.

Maryland is set to become the first state in the nation to outlaw chicken feed additives containing arsenic - but it won't be the last, if environmental activists have their way. Gov.Martin O'Malleyis scheduled to sign into law today legislation that bars sale or use of any chicken feed containing Roxarsone, which has been widely used since the 1940s by the poultry industry. It would become effective Jan. 1. Environmental and food safety advocates say they hope to push for similar legislation in other states, including neighboring Virginia.

Maryland is set to become the first state in the nation to outlaw chicken feed additives containing arsenic - but it won't be the last, if environmental activists have their way. Gov.Martin O'Malleyis scheduled to sign into law today legislation that bars sale or use of any chicken feed containing Roxarsone, which has been widely used since the 1940s by the poultry industry. It would become effective Jan. 1. Environmental and food safety advocates say they hope to push for similar legislation in other states, including neighboring Virginia.

According to Wicomico County Executive Richard M. Pollitt Jr. ("So what if O'Malley emails with Perdue lawyer," May 13), "[n]ot only is our entire region and state helped by the economics of the chicken industry, but so is our environment. " How could he possibly arrive at that conclusion? The data tells quite a different story. Maryland crop and livestock production combined has constituted about 0.35 percent of the state's Gross Domestic Product for the past decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis at the Commerce Department.

On Maryland's Eastern Shore, everything leads back to chickens. The poultry industry is the largest piece of a key sector of the local economy — agriculture — and its reach is broad: from the truckers who move products and the many farmers who grow corn for chicken feed to the corner stores and other businesses that rely on customers' income. Any hint of disruption to that economic ecosystem makes people nervous. And these days, it's more than that. The bankruptcy filing this month of Allen Family Foods, a Seaford, Del., poultry firm that provides direct employment to hundreds on the Maryland Shore, has left many more here worried about their future.

Karen Davis wants to change the way consumers see poultry -- not as fried nuggets or sauce-covered entrees, but as intelligent and lovable creatures.Pulling hen's teeth might be easier for the Montgomery County woman, founder and president of a small animal advocacy group, United Poultry Concerns Inc.Since 1990, when Ms. Davis formed her nonprofit group, chicken and turkey slaughter in the United States has risen nearly 4 billion pounds annually to almost...

Nine major poultry producers told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday that they are moving on their own to reduce the amount of bird waste that reaches the nation's rivers and streams.Invited to a meeting at the EPA's Region III headquarters in Philadelphia, poultry officials reportedly told federal regulators that industry initiatives will help clean up the water without the need for government requirements that would be more onerous."We're obviously just as concerned as anyone about pollution," said David Wiggins, president of Pennsylvania-based Empire Kosher Poultry Inc.Wiggins said last night that he had not been briefed by the environmental engineer who represented his company at the session.

MPF Inc., an Aberdeen firm that plans to develop a fish growing and marketing plan similar to that of the state's poultry industry, will be the first recipient of financial assistance from the new Maryland Seafood and Aquaculture Loan Fund.MPF, which will be known as Maryland Pride Farms Inc. once the loan transaction is complete, will receive a loan and line of credit valued at $250,000.MPF President Douglas Burdette started an aquaculture farm in 1976. He later sold it to Towsend Inc., one of the largest poultry processors on the Delmarva Peninsula.

SALISBURY - Declaring that the Maryland poultry industry's "time in the desert is over," Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. introduced a task force yesterday that he said will help ensure economic stability for the Eastern Shore's chicken business. Ehrlich, who campaigned last year promising to "give farmers a seat at the table" when decisions are made, vowed yesterday to cooperate with what he called mainstream environmental groups. He acknowledged, however, that organizations such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation were not included on the new task force and were not consulted about its makeup.

The state Department of Agriculture announced a pilot project yesterday that will allow Maryland farmers to manage the phosphorus-based nutrients in their crop soil.The four-year project will receive $1.5 million in annual funding from the state and the five poultry companies on the Eastern Shore, and permit farmers with excess poultry litter to transport it to farmers needing more.Poultry litter is chicken manure mixed with wood shavings. It contains more phosphorus than other fertilizers, and overloading cropland with phosphorus could cause long-term land or water-quality problems, said Norm Astle, the project coordinator.

A series of emails between Gov. Martin O'Malley and Perdue's corporate lawyer shows what an environmental group calls a "cozy relationship" between the two law school classmates as Maryland's chief executive weighs farm pollution regulations of concern to the Salisbury-based poultry producer. Food & Water Watch, a Washington-based environmental group, used Maryland's Public Information Act to obtain 70 pages of emails between O'Malley and Herbert D. Frerichs Jr., a partner with the Venable law firm in Baltimore who is general counsel for the Perdue family holding company that owns and operates Perdue Food Products, Perdue AgriBusiness and other entities.

State senators are scheduled to take a final vote today on whether to ban the use of arsenic in poultry feed, with proponents arguing it's needed to protect Marylanders and the Chesapeake Bay while Eastern Shore lawmakers contend it's unwarranted meddling with the state's poultry industry. Chicken and turkey producers have long used roxarsone, a veterinary drug containing arsenic, to treat common avian diseases and to plump up their birds. But the practice has raised concerns for human health and the environment.

I'm back from nine days in Florida (more on that later) -- just in time for the final week of the General Assembly, with most environmental legislation still hanging in the balance. In a dispute pitting environmentalists against the poultry industry (and maybe even a major drug manufacturer), the Senate is set to take up today (4/4) a bill ( SB207/HB167 ) that would ban the use of arsenic in chicken and turkey feed.  Poultry producers have long fed their birds roxarsone to control parasites, but concerns have been raised about the health and environmental consequences.  The maker of the drug pulled it from the market last year after a study by the US Food and Drug Administration found low levels of inorganic arsenic, a carcinogen, in the livers of chickens treated with roxarsone, or 3-Nitro.

With a catch in her throat, Kristin Hudson talks in a video posted online about her young daughter asking if "they" will take away her daddy's farm. The video, featured on SaveFarmFamilies.org rallied farmers and others across the country to the side of an Eastern Shore farm couple fighting an environmental group's lawsuit alleging that the farm polluted a Chesapeake Bay tributary. The Web-based organization has raised more than $200,000 to date from Perdue Farms, agricultural groups and other farmers to help Alan and Kristin Hudson pay legal bills in the 2-year-old case, according to one of the group's leaders.

Maryland farmers produce no crop more valuable than chickens. The state ranks eighth nationally, and the 1.4 billion pounds of broilers grown each year are valued at more than $600 million, or roughly 40 percent of all the state's crops added together. Yet the industry is in danger of harming itself - and others - with its continued opposition to a proposed ban on arsenic in chicken feed. How can poultry producers possibly oppose taking a known carcinogen out of the food chain?

CHESTERTOWN -- The Eastern Shore's poultry industry sought yesterday to block any new state regulations, pledging to reduce the impact of chicken manure on the Chesapeake Bay while denying that manure has nourished a fish-killing microbe in bay waters."

A gubernatorial panel agreed last night that the state's best hope of heading off future blooms of Pfiesteria piscicida is to limit the flow of nutrient pollutants into Chesapeake Bay estuaries.But the Governor's Pfiesteria Action Commission, which met in Annapolis, has just begun to grapple with the tougher question: whether to impose new regulations on a leading source of nutrients, Maryland's huge poultry industry.Commission members are far from a consensus on who should pay the cost of more prudent disposal of the Lower Eastern Shore's chicken manure.