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Water issues big topic at FPS 2014
Iowa Ag Secretary and ADM’s Chris Riley at 2014 Farm Progress Show
Water was a big topic at this week’s Farm Progress Show, which was cut short by too much water. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey says farmers have historically engaged in conservation and have worked to improve runoff. Northey told Brownfield farmers are working harder to make improvements with more tools now available to do it. As for the EPA’s Waters of the US draft rule, Northey says the agency wants too much control over agriculture.
Northey tells Brownfield Ag News, “In the short term, the EPA is probably going to continue with that philosopy. In the long term, I’m sure there’ll be lawsuits over it. We’ll see how it all ends up. Right now, we’ve got some things we can do on the farm. Let’s take care of those and let’s count those and make sure that we’re making progress.”
EPA Administrator Karl Brooks told Brownfield the EPA is listening and hearing lots of great suggestions on how to make the final rule work better. Brooks tells Brownfield, “I get the fact that people don’t want to leave it up to somebody’s discretion in Washington, D.C. And, that’s the agency’s goal – to have the rules of the road – and you might say the rules of the water – clear, right at the outset so that people don’t have to deal with this agency, they don’t have to deal with the Corps of Engineers.”
The final day of Farm Progress show was called off Thursday because of storms and too much rain.
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