Farmers Can Help Clean up the Chesapeake

December 30, 2016

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by Chip Bowling (U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance/Washington Post) I consider myself an environmentalist, a conservationist and a farmer. This is an identity I share with many farmers in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which spans more than 64,000 square miles in six states and the District of Columbia and is home to almost 18 million people.

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In a recent survey, conducted by the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance and the National Corn Growers Association, farmers across the country indicated that soil health (95 percent) and precise use of pesticides (94 percent) are key factors in environmental health.

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One way that farmers are doing more with less and preserving the environment is through the use of genetically engineered crops, which I find critical to our success for many reasons. The majority of farmers surveyed (87 percent) said genetically engineered crops allow them to minimize pesticide and herbicide usage, and more than three-quarters choose genetically engineered crops as a way to engage in practices such as conservation tillage, which promotes better soil health. Conservation tillage also reduces erosion and loss of nutrients and sediment from farm fields.

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However, no-till farming is difficult without herbicide-tolerant crops because of the need to control weeds, conventionally done through tillage. Before genetically engineered seeds, we had to plow our fields almost every year, which caused much more runoff into the waterways and also impacted our crops’ productivity. READ MORE / MORE