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.

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 Barbara A. Mikulski to reverse a little-noticed measure approved by Congress last month that rescinded tough new rules on the poultry industry - a move that has strained the already rocky relationship between mom-and-pop chicken farmers on the Eastern Shore and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.

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.

Last week, a federal judge in Baltimore issued a verdict in a lawsuit filed by an environmental group against an Eastern Shore farming family and Perdue. After nearly three years of litigation, Judge William Nickerson ruled that the evidence presented by the Waterkeeper Alliance did not demonstrate conclusively that contaminated water samples taken from the Pocomoke River could be traced to an adjacent poultry farm in Berlin owned by Alan and Kristin Hudson. The outcome was recognized by many as a victory for farmers and the poultry industry and as a setback for environmental groups interested in improving the water quality of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

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.

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."

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.

Lawyers squared off one last time Friday in a packed Baltimore courtroom to wrap up the long-running trial of a bitterly contested pollution lawsuit with ramifications for water cleanup efforts and the poultry industry in Maryland and nationwide. Jane Barrett, the lawyer for the Waterkeeper Alliance, told U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson that the New York-based environmental group had amassed overwhelming evidence during more than two weeks of testimony in October that chicken manure from Alan and Kristin Hudson's farm near Berlin had washed into a drainage ditch that ultimately empties into the Pocomoke River, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. But lawyers for the Hudsons and for Perdue countered that the environmental group had failed to make the case that the high levels of disease-causing bacteria found in the ditch came from chicken manure.

A dispute that started three years ago when environmentalists accused an Eastern Shore chicken farm and one of the nation's largest poultry companies of polluting a stream that ultimately flows to the Chesapeake Bay comes to a head Tuesday in a Baltimore federal courtroom. The trial, expected to last up to three weeks, begins in the Waterkeeper Alliance's lawsuit against Berlin farmers Alan and Kristin Hudson and Perdue Farms, the Salisbury-based company for whom the Hudsons raised birds.

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.

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.

Within the poultry industry, company dealings with the farmers they contract with have been one-sided for at least the past 20 years. It's been a long, hard battle for contract farmers to try to gain any fairness in that relationship; I can't count the times in those 20 years that I've traveled to Washington, D.C. to speak with our illustrious politicians about the issue. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) has the authority to write and publish rules to protect farmers from unfair and/or deceptive practices.

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.