Dust rules from EPA

Oh great another "Homesteader GOOD, Real Farmer BAD" thread.

I am sure this one will get shut down.

Ok, so the government can make people - businesses - farmers - etc. do what they don't want to do for the so-called good of the people...

Fine - make all the people grow their own food... Look at all the benefits from that...

excercise - healthier food - better air - increase in sales of gardening equipment - shoot might even make some people talk to their neighbors...

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own... I am not a number. I am a free man."

This is not something the Obama administration proposed.This was proposed in 2006 and I have not heard anything more about it until now.Sometimes you can only get a particular farm job done in one day and you can not wory about dust.I feel lucky if I am going east and west in the field and the wind is from the south.This is a sure sign that more people are another generation off the farm in this country.

This has to do with dust, created from some dirt and some plant matter blowing about.

This is 'dangerous levels of pollutants'????

Farmers have typically lived longer than people in other occupations. We are exposed to more crippling injories, but we live longer due to our lifestyles - which is smack dab in the middle of the farm, with the dirt & plant matter all around us. We are the healthier ones, compared to the people, adults, and children you talk of.

'When there is no pressing need'. You, or some other person sitting at a desk, can decide the best way to run a farm 1/2 way across the country? I do nothing on my farm without a pressing need - it is far too expensive to do anything unless it must be done.

I do not understand you, not at all.

Organic & small homesteader operations will be most hurt. Those sitting at their desks will need to come up with some way of farming, so expensive fans, water sprayers, & the like will have to be built into new large farm machinery; this will leave out anyone on a small farm or homestead operation.

Notill is all that will be allowed, so those in cold wet soils are instantly put out of business, as well as organic operations, which rely on tillage to kill weeds.

This will increase the cost of producing food, so more will be imported from Brazil, China, Mexico, and the like.

Food & feed production in the USA will be wound down, and leave this country.

I do not understand you at all. Just nothing about what you are saying.

Farming & gardening will be outlawed, or made too expensive to do so we will all be buying all our food from other countries.

What are you going to eat?

--->Paul

It was still with democrates in control of things though so if they brought it up and now they really have even more control you can bet it will be put up for a vote.

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I don't think there is really any argument that preserving soil, water, and air quality benefits everyone. I certainly can't think of a viable argument against such practices.

However, it isn't all negative for the farmer. I discussed this with my wife when she got home and she dug out some notes from a seminar that her company sent her to kill a day. The seminar was on sustainable agricultural practices and they discussed, of all things, dust reduction. They, the researchers, found that conservation tillage methods reduced ag dust production by 70% which resulted in a 25% reducton in cost (less labor and fuel costs as well as less diesel emmisions) to the farmer. If the farmer can reduce costs by implementing new methods, a move away from the argument that this is the way we've always done things, then that is money he can take to the bank that he would not have had if he did not adopt the newer methods The same applied when they stopped the burning of rice straw and started baling it and selling it instead.

We've also seen the same thing with the implementation of subsurface irrigation. When my brother switched over to using this to irrigate the crops he raises his savings were amazing when compared to his previous costs associated with furrow irrigation. The savings ranged from lower electrical costs associated with pumping water, less labor needed to prep the field, less cost for fertilizer (40% reduction in atmospheric loss of nitrogen fertilizers), and less cost and lower application rates of herbicides since the top surface of the ground remains dry and weeds do not sprout.

Adoption of better ag methods benefits the farmer and the populous on many fronts. Unfortunately, the first knee jerk reaction is that even the suggestion of implementing newer technologies or regulations has got to be bad. History does not support that position at all.

Around here, under certain conditions, visibility can be reduced to a few hundred yards for 20 miles or more due to suspended particulates Idust). Along with all this dust up to 40% of pesticide loss from ag lands has been found to be associated with air borne particulates. Those exposures and the well-documented effects of PM-10 particulates creates a unhealthy environment. In the area surrounding me, and that I grew up in, air quality fails to meet federal standards over 60% of the time. It is not all due to ag practices but ag practices contribute a significant portion to the poor air quaility.



The worst time of the year, around here, is in late summer and fall when crops have been harvested and what is left to do is to till and crib the crop remains into the ground. There are a handful of days a month when conditions suggest that this should not be done. There is no pressing need to till during these times when the fields will lay barren for months and months. There is ample opportunity to till and crib without conducting ag operations during these days when the risks outweigh the benefits.

this is simply not true! Nothing in the proposed regulations, at least around here, even hint at that being a requirement.

And these things are ecconomically advantagous for many, and are being done.

So, what is the need for some very oppressive regulations?

We farmers have been evolving and changing & doing things better. You are saying that correct?

But force extreme regulations like this, and who benifits?

Brazil. China. Container ship builders.

That is beside the point of this forum tho, and sorry I am sidetracking.

How much good do you think these regulations will do the average homesteader? Will you be able to buy the $25,000 baler that makes 50% less dust than the $500 baler you have now?

--->Paul

I haven't seen anything that indicates the regulations are oppresive. I heard the same arguments against the phasing out of rice straw burning. Farmers claimed, 20 years ago, that they would never be able to operate with no burning (outside of exceptions for disease control) and we can all see how that worked out.


some have and some haven't evolved at all and occasionally there have been reports of use of illegal pesticides.


I doubt the average homesteader will see any impact from these regulations. I see nothing in the proposed regulations that indicate new equipment is going to be required by anyone. I think that fear is unfounded.

No it was the drought that hit the area that cause the dust to blow. I hear this everything I propose regular tilling. Regular tiling is done because you must break up the soil so you can plaint seeds and cover them in heaver soils. They had a three year drought In that part of the US and with sandy soils once they were torn up they were just dust waiting for the wind to blow them away. Even those that were tilled three years earlier were blown away by the wind. It was Drought, tillage and wind that caused the dust boll to blow for several states. Don't think that tillage is the only cause it is one of three.

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God must have loved stupid people because he made so many of them.

I know a number of small farms and no one burns their fields.

Maybe one is thinking about the Grass farms that suppled the suburbs way back when... when they would burn their fields. That hasn't been done in a long time, they are also not, "food farmers".
There is also the draught in various parts of the country,, dust from that.

Problem is, with this kind of law, the local inforcement can take it so many ways and get zealot.

My hay field is not tilled in any way and the local farmer I use to hay my fields doesn't touch the dirt when he cuts and turns the hay. Tractor and machines do roll over the ground, there is still a bit of dust, can't be helped. Watering down the hay will just ruin the crop. Also doesn't help we have a dirt road along my field and the dust from fast moving cars and trucks on the road settles over my fields. You would not believe how much dust around here comes from that road.

My husband does use the Tractor to till but we have always waited for the soil to be just right..there is little dust. But then we live in the NW which makes it a bit easier.

So those that are saying this law is a good thing.. are you willing and able to pay 50%+ more for your food and or buy from China? You know the issues food from some other countries have, I sure won't eat it.

I prefer to grow my own food and what I can't I buy from other local Farmers.

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Shari

how does dust reduction result in 50% more cost for food? As the seminar my wife attended pointed out conservation tillage reduced dust production by 70% and saved the farmer 25% in field operation costs. I don't see the connection to that an increased food costs.
up until the phaseout started in 1991 the default method of dealing with rice stubble was to burn it. And burn it they did to the tune of thousands and thousands of acres of rice stubble. Today some limited burning is still permitted for disease control in rice fields. Wheat stubble, that hasn't been harvested for straw, is also burned in the fall and spring around here. So while you may not know anyone who burns their fields it does not mean that no one burns their fields or that other areas of the country have differing agricultural practices.

When you speak of 'conservation tillage' you mean that crops are grown with minimal cultivation of the soil. All the methods I know which include: no-till, minimum till, incomplete tillage, reduced tillage, or conservation tillage differ from each other mainly in the degree to which the soil is disturbed prior to planting.

Since we are talking about CT I'll stick to that - IMO, because of the increased dependence on herbicides for weed control and to kill the previous crop, the inclusion of conservation tillage as a "sustainable" practice could be questioned.

Also, some of the potential problems with CT are compaction, flooding or poor drainage, delays in planting because fields are too wet or too cold, and carryover of diseases or pests in crop residue.

I do admit that for some crops (such as corn, soybeans, cotton, sorghum and cereal grains) there are advantages, but not so with vegetable crops which as from what I know the 3 main disadvantages are the difficulty of controlling weeds and the need for custom-built equipment and the intensive nature of vegetable production.

I personally would rather put up with dust, then drowning the soil in chemicals. I also perfer small intensive farming instead of large acreage corp. farms.. Just don't see if this applys to organic farms or not - because making conservation tillage work in organic systems is, not easy.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own... I am not a number. I am a free man."

http://drought.unl.edu/whatis/dustbowl.htm

http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps...n/dustbowl.htm

http://memory.loc.gov/learn/features.../dustbowl.html

http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html

One of the side effects of the Dust Bowl was "dust pneumonia. It sounds like there is a general consensus that it'll be Ok if we all get dust pneumonia, since the only alternative is starving to death. Frankly, I think humans are smarter than that. I think we can find a way to farm without causing dust pollution.

I think the politicians and beauracrats should just stop goofing around an ban all growing of plants and animals..... I mean how do you know a potato doesn't hurt when you slice it? If it wasn't for the durn farmers we could have turned this in to a socialistic county of clones a long time ago... then things would be been much more orderly. I mean, I mean, Iran doesn't have all this dissent among its citizens... and I think the governments of central Africa and North Korea pretty much have these problems under control too. If you guys would just put yourselves in the hands of the politicians, they would have everything fixed in a jiffy.. Just take the US representitive from your district... he voted the way the majority of his constituents wanted on the "bail-out" didn't he? Oh well, if not, it must be because you're too stupid to know what's good for you right? (you do keep on electing him )

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Moving to that big black hole in the night satellite photo. (also the hole in cell phone coverage )

[QUOTE]to a degree that is what I am referring too. Around here it was common to have up to 10 passes with heavy equipment to prep the soil for planting. At the end of the season there is, typically, another 10 passes to get the field ready for winter. While there can be times in the spring when large amounts of dust are produced it is the fall when the largest volume of dust is lifted off the fields.

Sustainability combines many factors and for this area those include water conservation (zero rainfall during growing season), herbicide and pesticide runoff, and dust reduction.

The fields around here are 'ripped' every 8 years or so due to compaction but with the onset of subsurface drip irrigation this will be reduced. The reduction comes from a decreased use of heavy equipment on the fields leading to less compaction. Herbicide use is reduced as farmers move away from furrow (flood) irrigation as well as major reductions in herbicide and fertilizer usage. Weather is typically not a problem for most field operations although major delays in getting some veggie crops can occur with extended March rainfall.


With the use of subsurface drip tape for irrigation weed control is much easier than previous methods. Most farmers apply herbicide in the winter to reduce tillage needs in the spring and when row crops are in they use one pass by hoeing crews to remove weeds. Previously, we've seen a number of passes, with heavy equipment, during the growing season to cultivate after flood irrigation compacts the soil and weeds grow and the last few years we have seen cultivation only after the initial planting (which is mostly done these days with started plants). Subsurface irrigation has vastly improved agriculture methods around here, such as quite dramatic reductions of herbicide and fertilizer use.

Farming methods, and farmers, have organized so that the planters can acommodate tomatoes, bok choy, cauliflower, lettuce, peppers or any other vegetable start that can be grown. All crops, outside of alfalfa, are being grown with the same furrow system which reduces the need for specialized equipment.

I share your sentiment about large-scale agriculture but that is the reality of the Central and San Joaquin Valley of California and it is not going to change. That in and of itself is the reason dust is such a problem. Pretty much every square inch of ground is under cultivation and when the wind blows it looks like the pictures of the dust bowl days with foothill to foothill dust.

I've done some farming here's my input.

No till is a good way to save fuel, and get government subsidies.

Plowed ground dries faster and warms up quicker, that means two things you can seed earlier in the spring, and the warmer ground encourages faster sprout.

Dust pneumonia isn't an issue because we invented the tractor cab.

Burned ground doesn't produce as well as plowed ground, at first I didn't think it would be true but it is.

Dust is like hair on a bar of soap it's an unfortunate fact of life. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet and you have to make a little dust to grow grain.

What we need to do is pave the entire planet and start farming the moon.

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The best of men is only a man at best.

LOL sebastes... I think we will be agreeing and disagreeing on certain aspects of farming...

As for subsurface drip tape the things I have hear have been mostly good, and the few drawbacks to it are: they don't recommend using SSD for grazed pastures, and I hear it doesn't work to well with light soils.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own... I am not a number. I am a free man."

And they spent MORE than that to buy the HERBICIDES needed to kill the weeds that "no -till" leaves. They need BIGGER, MORE EXPENSIVE tractors that use MORE FUEL to handle "no-till" planters

Life isnt a Disney movie where everything is always perfect. You cant have blanket regulations that apply to all situations.


I think you exaggerate

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

I think you are right!

I'd agree that grazed pasture would be a bit hard on keeping the drip tape in place as well as supplying enough water to grow the pasture. One of the major problems here with subsurface drip tape is gophers chewing holes in it. Out here they bury the drip tape at 12 inches and then plant their starts at 8 inches.