Even though the ground isn’t frozen yet this year, all farms have had to put their manure trucks away until spring, in keeping with the state regulations about not spreading manure on frozen ground (between December 15 and April 1). Although this regulation has been in place for years, other stringent rules for large farms and new rules for small and medium-size farms have been proposed by the state under the Required Agricultural Practice Rules (RAPs) legislated by Act 64.
Act 64 was signed into law earlier this year and is designed to govern stricter standards around water quality in the state. Phosphorous that leaches from manure being a big cause of the pollution in Lake Champlain, manure handling comes under particular scrutiny. However, not just farms will be affected by this ruling; treatment of town roads and stormwater runoff, development along Vermont’s waterways, forestlands and ski resorts will also face new or more rigorously enforced regulations in the near future.
I haven’t talked to any farmer who isn’t concerned about water quality and who doesn’t agree that Act 64 isn’t in essence a good thing. But there is plenty of real concern about the new layers of paperwork, reporting, rule-following and inspection that comes with it. In the past, only large farms had to follow nutrient management plans and be inspected by the state.
Now any farm that has a “threshold number of animals” (which differs per species) on four or more acres and makes more than $2,000 gross income must have an approved nutrient management plan and be certified by the state. This requires attending classes to be trained in how to write the detailed plan; new record-keeping requirements for grazing, manure management and winter feeding areas; restrictions on placement of manure piles and so on. In other words, what you do on your land may fall under these regulations, even if you consider yourself more of a backyard homesteader than a farmer.
Vermont is a state with a huge diversity in the size and type of farm. Most who live in The Valley are aware that there are huge differences in management between a grass-fed beef operation, an organic vegetable farm, and a dairy where the animals stay indoors much of the time. The state is trying to make these regulations reasonable and diversified as well, but it’s clear that this isn’t easy. Personally, I am left with a lot of questions. Here are just a few of them:
1) Cropland subject to flooding is required to be planted to cover crops in the fall, before September 15 of each year. It is not clear if there is an exception made for vegetable farmers, since many fall vegetables are not out of the field by that date. This year some corn was chopped late as well, given the late spring and longer fall. It’s also not clear why upland sloping fields don’t require cover cropping, even though they are more likely to erode in the winter and spring and soil erosion is a big source of stream pollution.
2) The new definition of a small farm that falls under the new regulations and must be certified by the state is very small: four or more acres, $2,000 gross revenue and a few animals (four horses, five cows, 15 sheep or goats, 100 chickens). One of the regulations is that manure piles cannot be left in place for more than 180 days, nor can they be in the same place more than once every four years. Imagine on a steep, small hill farm finding a different place for your manure pile every six months for four years. Can there be a distinction between small farms on river bottoms and those up in the hills?
3) Agricultural runoff has been estimated to contribute 38 percent of the pollution to Lake Champlain, one-third of that from New York farms. Vermont’s regulations heavily emphasize the management of manure for good reason, given how high it is in phosphorous.
However, in New York, there is no such manure management and New York rivers like the Saranac and Ausable have increasing levels of phosphorous while levels in some Vermont rivers are coming down. I know at least one farmer on the Vermont side who owns 1,000 acres in New York; so logically when he can’t spread manure in Vermont in the winter, he drives over the bridge and spreads it on the other side. When will Vermont and New York come together to care for the lake that they share?
4) Finally, grass farming and organic dairy require that animals be outside on pasture for the majority of the year. They are spreading their own manure on permanent sod, which has been shown to allow nutrients to be more fully captured and locked in by the soil. Their manure is not piling up as quickly in ponds or containers in liquid form and because the pastures are not tilled they erode less and require less fertilizer.
In other words, there are many different ways to farm and manage manure, but in our agricultural state, dominated by dairy herds, an awful lot of manure is always going to have to go somewhere. How is the state providing positive incentives to farmers to start farming in a way that is less polluting to the environment, for the long-term health of the rivers?
We need more farmers and more local food being produced, not less, but if we care about healthy ecosystems we also need to farm better. Although I agree with the intent behind them, I worry that these new regulations on small farms will discourage young and new farmers from the get-go, not encourage all of us to farm better, with more success, for the long haul.
Whybrow grew up on a dairy farm in New Hampshire and now raises grass-fed lamb and certified organic berries at Knoll Farm in Fayston.
