The Ohio Agriculture Conservation Initiative (OACI) welcomes the recent expansion of the H2Ohio farmer incentive program into 10 additional Western Lake Erie Basin counties. In an effort to spread awareness of the program and amplify the continued commitment farmers have to preserving Ohio’s lakes, streams and waterways, OACI is partnering with the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) and H2Ohio to host a series of informational meetings for farmers and producers.
ODA and OACI will host four virtual meetings explaining H2Ohio’s expansion in the Maumee Watershed and how agriculture and conservation fit into the program’s goals and priorities. The meetings will be held on the following dates, and full details and access to the links are available at h2.ohio.gov:
· July 20, 6:00 p.m.
· July 22, 9:00 a.m.
· July 28, 6:00 p.m.
· July 29, 1:00 p.m.
“We are committed to reaching as many farmers as possible to spread the word about the expansion of the H2Ohio program and the dedicated work farmers are putting in to improving water quality across the state,” said Kris Swartz, OACI chair and northwest Ohio farmer.… Continue reading
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is investing up to $17 million for conservation partners to help protect and restore critical wetlands on agricultural lands through the Wetland Reserve Enhancement Partnership (WREP). USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is prioritizing proposals that focus on assisting historically underserved producers conserving wetlands. Proposals from partners are due Aug. 15, 2021.
Restored wetlands help to improve water quality downstream, enhance wildlife habitat, reduce impacts from flooding and provide recreational benefits.
“Our goal is to support agricultural producers in their efforts to conserve natural resources on their land, improve water quality downstream and enhance wildlife habitat,” said Lori Ziehr, State Conservationist in Ohio. “Wetland Reserve Enhancement Partnerships help partners and producers work together to protect wetland ecosystems on working lands.”
Through WREP projects, eligible conservation partners protect, restore and enhance high-priority wetlands on agriculture lands. WREP enables effective integration of wetland restoration on working agricultural landscapes, providing meaningful benefits to farmers and ranchers who enroll in the program and to the communities where the wetlands exist.… Continue reading
Don Bailey, Successor Trustee to Arno L. Renner, Charles Renner and Patrick and Whitney Bailey, successor landowners and operators of lands preserved by the Arno L. Renner Trust and over which Arno Renner donated an Agricultural Easement to the Ohio Department of Agriculture in 2003 filed the lawsuits in Union County Common Pleas Court.
The lawsuits:
1) ask for a writ of mandamus to the ODA, the holder of the Ag Easement, to enforce its terms, and 2) seek injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment against Columbia Gas of Ohio who seeks to acquire commercial gas pipeline easements to construct the Marysville Connector.
The mandamus action also includes the Union Soil and Water Conservation District due to its responsibility to monitor and report violations of the Ag Easement to ODA.… Continue reading
First, the good news! No farm workers have died due to COVID-19 related outbreaks in Ohio according to data collected by the Food & Environment Reporting Network. COVID-19 cases and related deaths in agriculture mainly occurred in the meat processing industry.
As a direct impact of COVID-19 pandemic to human health in Ohio, 1.1 million people were infected with virus and 20,000 lives were lost (through May 24, 2021). COVID-19 is a respiratory disease transmitted by direct uptake of droplets or aerosols produced by a person infected with coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Coronavirus in droplets landing on surfaces may remain infectious and may be transmitted to humans who touch the surfaces and then their faces. However, it is not known whether the amount of contamination on surfaces is sufficient to make a person sick. Maintaining a good hygiene such as washing hands is important to prevent virus transmission as well as wearing a mask.… Continue reading
Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie & Chevrolet. They go together… in the good ol’ USA. This quote from an iconic 1974 ad showcased Americana in its finest. Nothing says down home American culture like a hot dog. The National Hot Dog and Sausage Council states Americans purchased 9 billion hot dogs at retail stores. Throw in the 19.4 million hot dogs eaten at ballparks across the country and street vendors/food trucks throughout the cities estimating a total of over 20 billion hot dogs eaten in a year. That is about 70 hot dogs per person a year! Who eats the most hot dogs? LA beat out NYC, Dallas, Chicago, and Philadelphia consuming nearly 30 million pounds of hot dogs. Quickly calculating 8 per package…that is 240 million hot dogs!.
The baseball and hot dog tale starts in 1906. Back in the day “hot dachshund sausages” were being sold at a baseball game played at the NYC polo grounds.… Continue reading
Conditions are fairly reasonable from the weather and climate front. Nothing is ever ideal but temperatures and rainfall have been reasonable to this point. July will likely go down as a bit wetter than normal with temperatures slightly warmer than normal mostly due to overnight lows being higher. It does not appear we will see maximum temperatures above 95 much in July which is good news. Rainfall is normally 3-4 inches in July across the state and it looks like most places will be in the 2-5 inch range. Isolated higher totals are also possible. So even the locations with below normal rainfall should not be too dry. If anything we may battle the slightly wetter and more humid side of things. The remainder of the growing season trend looks to continue with slightly wetter and warmer than normal. You can see all the latest outlooks at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center located here: https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead01/off01_prcp.gif… Continue reading
By Dan Armitage, host of Buckeye Sportsman, Ohio’s longest running outdoor radio show
The water level of Knox Lake, one of Ohio premier largemouth bass fishing destinations, has been rising since mid-May after being lowered a year ago for dam construction — which is now complete. Austin Levering, Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) wildlife officer for Knox County, said, “The dam itself is complete. They’re just putting the finishing touches on it right now.”
ODNR began rehabilitating Knox Lake’s 60-year-old dam last June to adhere to safety standards and lowered the water level of the lake approximately six feet during construction. ODNR scheduled construction to be completed by the end of last month.
“It took about a year; they were right on schedule,” Levering said. “Patrons of the lake have been allowed to use small watercraft, such as kayaks, during construction, but large watercraft have not been permitted throughout the low-level period.”… Continue reading
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) Director Dorothy Pelanda announced that H2Ohio’s farmer incentive program is expanding into 10 additional counties in the Western Lake Erie Basin.
The program, which offers funding to farmers who implement proven conservation practices that limit agricultural phosphorus runoff from fertilizer, is now open to farmers in Seneca, Huron, Erie, Wyandot, Richland, Shelby, Sandusky, Marion, Ottawa, and Crawford counties, bringing the total number of counties eligible for the program to 24. Phosphorus runoff is the primary factor behind algal blooms on Lake Erie.
“Our food growers and producers in the Western Lake Erie Basin want to be part of the solution, as evidenced by the 1,800 farmers who participated in the program’s first year,” said Governor DeWine. “By expanding H2Ohio’s farmer incentive program into more counties in the area, we’ll continue to slow phosphorus runoff, which will ultimately contribute to a reduction in Lake Erie algal blooms over the long term.”… Continue reading
The meaning of the word “extension” was at the heart of a dispute that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court over small refinery exemptions under the nation’s Renewable Fuel Program (RFP). The decision by the Supreme Court came as a bit of a surprise, as questions raised by the Justices during oral arguments on the case last Spring suggested that the Court would interpret “extension” differently than it did in its June 27 decision.
Congress established the RFP in 2005 to require domestic refineries to incorporate specified percentages of renewable fuels like ethanol into the fuels they produce. Recognizing that meeting RFP obligations could be more difficult and costly for small-scale refineries, Congress included an automatic two-year exemption from RFP obligations in the statute for small refineries producing less than 75,000 barrels per day. … Continue reading
Access to labor was a concern for Ohio’s food and agriculture sectors before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic which brought more volatility to the food supply chain. Now, the challenges with labor have only gotten worse.
In April 2021, the federal government moved to bolster the available labor supply in the U.S. by increasing the number of available H-2B (non-agricultural) visas, in part to help with the challenges of labor agriculture and the nation’s food supply chain. In May, the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security published a joint temporary final rule making available an additional 22,000 H-2B temporary non-agricultural guest worker visas for fiscal year 2021 to employers who are likely to suffer irreparable harm without these additional workers. Of the supplemental visas, 6,000 are reserved for nationals of the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
DHS first announced the planned supplemental increase of 22,000 visas for the H-2B Temporary Non-Agricultural Worker program on April 20, 2021.… Continue reading
It’s been a long and winding road to the Governor’s desk for Senate Bill 52, the controversial bill on siting and approval of large-scale wind and solar facilities in Ohio. The bill generated opposition and concern from the outset, requiring a major overhaul early on. A substitute bill passed the Senate on June 2 after six hearings and hundreds of witnesses testifying for and against the bill. It took the House five hearings to pass a further revised version of the bill, and the Senate agreed to those revisions the same day. Now the bill awaits Governor DeWine’s action. If the Governor signs the bill, it would become effective in 90 days.
S.B. 52 generates conflicting opinions on property rights and renewable energy. It would grant counties and townships a voice in the siting and approval of large-scale wind and solar projects, allowing a community to go so far as to reject facility applications and prohibit facilities in identified restricted areas of the county.… Continue reading
In the early hours of July 1, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed the $74 billion state budget for Fiscal Years 2022-2023. The balanced, 3,300-page budget did not require dipping into the State’s rainy-day funds in spite of the challenges of COVID-19.
“This is a strong budget focused on our future. Budgets always reflect priorities. Policy is driven so often through budgets. What you invest in is what you value and this budget reflects what we value,” DeWine said. “To think we have done this while coming out of the worst health crisis in 100 years — we have come out with this strong budget. We made the tough choices early on. We cut spending we froze hiring and we did what we had to do.”
There were a number of highlights for Ohio agriculture.
“From rural broadband and local meat processing capacity, to funding for H2Ohio, the Ohio Department of Agriculture and Ohio State, lawmakers and Governor DeWine heard from Ohio Farm Bureau and our members and responded to the issues laid out in our Ohio Agriculture and Rural Communities Action Plan with this new budget,” said Adam Sharp, executive vice president of Ohio Farm Bureau.… Continue reading
NOAA and its research partners are forecasting that western Lake Erie will experience a smaller-than-average harmful algal bloom this summer. A relatively dry spring will lead to a repeat of last year’s mild bloom – this is the first time in more than a dozen years that mild blooms have occurred in consecutive summers.
This year’s bloom is expected to measure 3, with a potential range of 2 to 4.5, out of 10 on the severity index — among the smaller blooms since 2011. Last year’s bloom was measured at a 3. The index is based on the bloom’s biomass — the amount of algae — during the peak 30 days of the bloom. An index above 5 indicates more severe blooms. Blooms over 7 are particularly severe, with extensive scum formation and coverage affecting the lake. The largest blooms occurred in 2011, with a severity index of 10, and 2015, exceeding the scale and measuring at a severity index of 10.5. … Continue reading
The Northwest Ohio Soil & Water Conservation Districts are pleased to offer a free at-home “Do-It-Yourself” Jr. Conservationist summer program. The program’s hands-on activities and registration are online at www.lucasswcd.org/jrcc.
The Jr. Conservationist in training will have fun learning about soil, water, plants, animals, community, and nature exploration by completing the required number of activities in each category and submitting photos of doing the activities or photos of the completed projects by Wed., Aug. 25. Photos will be sent to your county’s local SWCD contact, who will send you a welcome message once you register.
Upon completion of the activities, participants will receive a certificate. A Jr. Conservationist t-shirt is available for $10 (unless sponsored for free by your local SWCD), it will be invoiced and available for pick up at your SWCD office or can be mailed to you for an additional $5.00 fee. The Wood Soil and Water Conservation District is offering a t-shirt free of charge for those who complete the program in Wood County. … Continue reading
Poison hemlock and Canada thistle are making unwelcome appearances across Ohio, and that raises the need to talk about Ohio’s noxious weeds law. The law provides mechanisms for dealing with noxious weeds — those weeds that can cause harm to humans, animals, and ecosystems. Location matters when we talk about noxious weeds. That’s because Ohio law provides different procedures for dealing with noxious weeds depending upon where we find the weeds. The law addresses managing the weeds on Ohio’s noxious weeds list in these four locations:
Along roadways and railroads
Along partition fence rows
On private land beyond the fence row
On park lands.
Along roadways and railroads
The first window already closed for mandatory mowing of noxious weeds along county and township roads. Ohio law requires counties, townships, and municipalities to destroy all noxious weeds, brush, briers, burrs, and vines growing along roads and streets.… Continue reading
It is no secret: stress is a part of farm life. The unique challenges of a family farm can place huge burdens on farmers who often have little control of factors determining the success or failure of the operation that serves as their family heritage, livelihood and, often, their identity.
When times get tough, it is all too common that the unthinkable happens. There has been an alarming trend in America where rural populations have a significantly higher suicide rate than urban areas. Available information indicates the suicide rate among farmers is 3.5 times higher than the general population, according to the National Rural Health Association.
With these staggering statistics in mind, efforts are being made to change the conversation about mental health in rural Ohio. This, of course, includes the agribusiness community.
“The Ohio AgriBusiness Association recognizes that our member companies’ employees have deep, personal relationships with their customers that put them in a unique position when it comes to identifying and helping farmers struggling with mental health issues,” said Chris Henney, president and CEO for the Ohio AgriBusiness Association.… Continue reading
Let me start by saying I don’t have a dog in this hunt. A recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (which covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, Oregon, and Washington), however, is worthy of discussion. The Appellate Court affirmed the decision of the lower federal court in Hardeman v. Monsanto awarding $25 million in damages to a 70-year-old man who had used Roundup for three decades on his 56 acres in Sonoma County, California. The jury found that Roundup was a “substantial factor” in the plaintiff’s illness, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL), and awarded $80 million in damages.The judge reduced the award to $25 million as he found the jury amount to be a violation of the Constitution. Because this case is the first one to reach a federal appeals court, the conclusions reached by the Ninth Circuit will likely affect other cases brought in that jurisdiction, where the plaintiffs are making similar arguments or bringing similar evidence.… Continue reading
The U.S. Senate passed the Growing Climate Solutions Act.
The act has 55 co-sponsors, which makes it the first major piece of bipartisan legislation that would help farmers, ranchers and forest landowners reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build climate resilience through voluntary, market-driven programs. The Growing Climate Solutions Act passed by a vote of 92-8.
“We appreciate lawmakers putting aside their differences to work on bipartisan solutions to the challenges facing farmers and ranchers,” said Zippy Duvall, AFBF president. “The Growing Climate Solutions Act acknowledges the potential of climate-smart farming while ensuring farmers would be respected as partners who can build on our strong foundation of environmental stewardship.”
The Growing Climate Solutions Act is supported by more than 75 agriculture, food, forestry and environmental groups that are part of the Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance (FACA). The alliance advocates for responsible policies that build on voluntary, incentive-based programs, market-driven opportunities and science-based approaches.… Continue reading
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) began accepting nominations for county committee members on June 15. Elections will occur in certain Local Administrative Areas (LAA) for these members who make important decisions about how federal farm programs are administered locally. All nomination forms for the 2021 election must be postmarked or received in the local FSA office by Aug. 2, 2021.
“We need enthusiastic, diverse leaders to serve other agricultural producers locally on FSA County Committees,” said Mark VanHoose Acting State Executive Director for FSA in Ohio. “Now’s your time to step up and truly make an impact on how federal programs are administered at the local level to reach all producers fairly and equitably.”
VanHoose said agricultural producers who participate or cooperate in a USDA program, and reside in the LAA that is up for election this year, may be nominated for candidacy for the county committee. A cooperating producer is someone who has provided information about their farming or ranching operation to FSA, even if they have not applied or received program benefits.Individuals may… Continue reading
Spring and summer are busy times for farmers, gardeners, and landscapers. On a smaller scale, home-owners can experience the same fatigue that comes with long hours of yard work. Paying attention to how you do the work can help alleviate some of the aches and pains.
Good body mechanics are an essential part of decreasing your risk of injury and muscle fatigue and increasing your muscle stamina and productivity. The term body mechanics is a technical term to describe how the body moves through different positions throughout the day. Having proper body mechanics–or being mindful of moving your body in the optimal positions that it was designed for–helps to ensure decreased risk of injury and muscle fatigue.
The spine is made up of stacked bones that form a natural S-shaped curve when viewed from the side. These curves are designed to absorb shock, maintain balance, allow flexibility of the body, and keep the joints and muscles around it strong. These… Continue reading
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