DEQ To Try ‘Flexible’ Plan
Posted: January 26, 2013
HARRISONBURG — Local farmers may soon be asked whether state officials can evaluate their land to see where conservation changes can be made.
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services have partnered to try a new method for addressing potential water quality concerns.
Under the new approach, farmers let DEQ officials look around their property and evaluate how it could be more eco-friendly. Then, those farmers could voluntarily make recommended changes.
“[The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is] anxious to go ahead and start requiring smaller farms to … get permits,” said Virginia Agriculture Commissioner Matt Lohr. “VDACS feels that’s the wrong approach. … Many times, with permits, it’s kind of a one-size-fits-all. We feel a better approach is to be flexible, take it on a farm-by-farm basis.”
The state’s new program is an attempt to keep permits from becoming a requirement.
Virginia is primarily targeting Valley dairy farms that have less than 200 head of cattle, Lohr said, although poultry operations and other farms will also be contacted.
Officials hope to assess about 800 such farms in the next three years.
Six Valley farms — most of them in Rockingham County — served as test subjects for the new program last year.
The ultimate goal is to point farmers who may need extra help in the right direction to receive it, so they can make changes before being bombarded by regulations.
DEQ will contact farmers to ask if they’d like to participate, said Lohr, a Broadway area farmer and former member of the House of Delegates.
“We feel like this voluntary approach … is really a good first step,” he said. “My hope is that farmers aren’t going to see it as an overreach of government powers.”
Lohr said he believes mandates are several years down the road.
“My hope is that we can make so much progress going down this route that there won’t ever have to be mandated regulations,” he said.
For more information, visit the DEQ website at www.deq.virginia.gov .
Contact Candace Sipos at 574-6275 or csipos@dnronline.com
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services have partnered to try a new method for addressing potential water quality concerns.
Under the new approach, farmers let DEQ officials look around their property and evaluate how it could be more eco-friendly. Then, those farmers could voluntarily make recommended changes.
“[The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is] anxious to go ahead and start requiring smaller farms to … get permits,” said Virginia Agriculture Commissioner Matt Lohr. “VDACS feels that’s the wrong approach. … Many times, with permits, it’s kind of a one-size-fits-all. We feel a better approach is to be flexible, take it on a farm-by-farm basis.”
The state’s new program is an attempt to keep permits from becoming a requirement.
Virginia is primarily targeting Valley dairy farms that have less than 200 head of cattle, Lohr said, although poultry operations and other farms will also be contacted.
Officials hope to assess about 800 such farms in the next three years.
Six Valley farms — most of them in Rockingham County — served as test subjects for the new program last year.
The ultimate goal is to point farmers who may need extra help in the right direction to receive it, so they can make changes before being bombarded by regulations.
DEQ will contact farmers to ask if they’d like to participate, said Lohr, a Broadway area farmer and former member of the House of Delegates.
“We feel like this voluntary approach … is really a good first step,” he said. “My hope is that farmers aren’t going to see it as an overreach of government powers.”
Lohr said he believes mandates are several years down the road.
“My hope is that we can make so much progress going down this route that there won’t ever have to be mandated regulations,” he said.
For more information, visit the DEQ website at www.deq.virginia.gov .
Contact Candace Sipos at 574-6275 or csipos@dnronline.com