Maryland Emergency Manure Regulation Withdrawn

Thanks to a lot of hard work by a lot of people in the agricultural community throughout Maryland,the Maryland Department of Agriculture has withdrawn its proposed emergency regulation related to phosphorus applications on farmland.
The August 28 hearing in Annapolis for the General Assembly’s Administrative, Executive, and Legislative Joint Review Committee has been cancelled. 

The Maryland Department of Agriculture will start working with the agricultural community to implement the Phosphorus Management Tool in a phased-in manner, something we were advocating. We appreciate the O’Malley government and Secretary of Agriculture Buddy Hance for recognizing our concerns and their willingness to work with us in a cooperative manner. This will allow the Maryland Department of Agriculture to develop a reasonable schedule to phase-in the new phosphorus tool.

We thank each person who worked with DPI and the other agricultural organizations prepare for the August 28 hearing and for the dozens of chicken growers and farmers who planned to attend the hearing on August 28 to have their voices heard. This truly was a team effort.

We thank Senator Rich Colburn for his original request to have the legislative committee hold the August 28 hearing and to Senator Jim Mathias for his hard work communicating our concerns to other legislators and to Governor O’Malley and his team. We also appreciate the other legislators who weighed in on this issue with their colleagues and with the governor and who expressed their concerns on our behalf.