Dust rules from EPA
 

Folks, this stuff is for real. You think Nais animal registration is bad, how you going to till your graden with this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090227/...ene_dust_rules

The people enacting this stuff have no idea how growing things works. In California they were discussing having a central call-in location; you call them, and they decide when you can work your fields - when the wind & humidity conditions were right.

Think about this.

Now is the time to react, not after it passes & you say you never heard of it.....

--->Paul

My DH had the perfect response. "Wouldn't you like to walk in that moron's office and just slap him !"

Tilling is bad for soil. It's unnecessary. It sends our precious topsoil into the air and into our lungs and down the river.

I think this could be very beneficial if it prompts farmers to find less damaging ways to farm which will conserve soil fertility. Unfortunately, probably they will go the no-till route with Round-up ready crops and extra chemicals on our food. I think our foods should be labeled with each and every toxic chemical that was ever used on it....

not a bad idea at all. There are a lot of people who have adverse health effects from agricultural burning and working the soil. These effects are felt miles and miles away from where the actual burning and/or other ag operations are taking place. If you have never seen ag operations in California and the massive amounts of smoke and fine dust that is put into the atmosphere you cannot appreciate what they are talking about.

Pure idiocy in my opinion. It is quite apparent that many have never been around a working farm.

Here is a photo of the chaff/dust/etc. coming out of the back of a combine. http://lh6.ggpht.com/_Kv8ZBrn5eO0/Rs...8/P1010006.jpg

Without a continual spray or mist of water I see no way to control it as a high volume of air is needed to separate the chaff and other components from the grain. Waste water to control dust--I can't see any benefit since water is so very precious.

No-till works but even the big sprayers with monster flotation tires traveling across the fields kick up large quantities of dust. Chemicals or conventional tillage is pretty much the choice in lower rainfall areas where there isn't enough rainfall for cover crops and to produce a crop.

Too bad farmers aren't in full control of markets and could only sell their foodstuffs to those with enough sense to allow them to do their jobs in a reasonable manner.

Simple solution - everybody go's back to growing their own food...

Too simple Tom........the liberals out there in Never-Never Land don't have a clue unless you spell it out to them in its' entirety.......and even then one has to wonder.

Everybody goes back to growing their own food.....if they succeed they eat...


If they don't.......they starve. Simple enough now???:shrug:

Talk about silly. I just have a small Veggie garden for my family,,,, and no matter what there is dust.
When we have someone hay our field... there is dust.
Heck... I see more dust coming off the dirt road when people drive fast, than I see coming off Farm equpiment around here.

Guess.. the Gov doesn't want to eat. If they keep tying the farmers hands, there isn't going to be enough food for this country. Then and only then the Suburbs and City folks would be screaming bloody murder about not having enough food or food that costs too much.

Sad that the folks in the Gov are busy spinning their wheels creating new and unique ways to take Farmers and Country folks rights away. Sigh~~

So how are farmers suppose to grow food if they can't put any dust in the air? Sounds like another step on the road to famine.

Be curious, as I see this gos back to 2006, how much influence - Michael Taylor, William D. Ruckelshaus, Linda J. Fisher, Lidia Watrud,David W. Beler, Larry Zeph - had on this?

All have worked for both Monsanto Corporation and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Darwin's theory in action. Those that survive will learn to graze on the grass that grows in the vacant cities.

I am not sure why folks believe farmers should get a free pass on soil, water, and air pollution issues. It just baffles me. The area I live in I have lived my entire life and it is in the center of major agriculture. I can easily remember the days when burning rice and wheat stubble produced enough smoke that the valley was literally filled to ground level with smoke. As a result of all this smoke the elderly, asthmatics, and those with other serious health issues would see an increase in hosptalizations due the the severity of the air pollution. At times with the number of acres under cultivation dust can also create choking situations and periods of dangerously low visibility. There is a balance and a few years ago the PTB restricted uncontrolled burning whenever the farmer felt like it and replaced it with permitting burning only when the atmospheric conditions were such that there would be no inversion and, therefore, minimize health impacts.

The farmers squalled loud and long about it but in the end it had no impact on their bottom line and their major complaint was that "we have always done it like this". That excuse just doesn't fly any more and it shouldn't. There is a balance that can be obtained and as I read the regulations dust emissions are not forbidden but restricted as to when discharges will have minimal impact on the surrounding landscape and the people that inhabit those lands.

Has anyone ever ridden behind a bus or truck belching black sooty smoke? Do you think inhaling those particles is healthy? The same can be said for filling the air, that everyone for miles and miles around has to breathe, with particles that when inhaled pose major health risks. No, farmers should not get a free pass on pollution simply because they choose to grow an agricultural commodity.

If you choose not to eat, the farmers will someday stop polluting the air.

Sounds like some enterprising person needs to come up with a water spraying attachment to go on a tiller so as the soil is tilled, the dust is settled quickly back to the ground greatly eliminating dust. Oh, that's right. The don't have any water in California either.

The idea of someone sitting at a desk with a lot of book learning, a computer screen and a soft chair telling a farmer when to till is crazy.

The health & safety & environmental nuts will be the end of us.

When people are starving for lack of food we can revisit this insanity.

Why? They, the farmers, have regular meetings all the time taking and implementing suggestions from all those book-learned folks on how to better their land use practices and move to more sustainable practices. Subsurface drip irrigation is one of those suggestions that has taken off albeit with a lot of teeth gnashing from the old-school famers who wished to continue with furrow irrigation. The same can be said for burning rice and wheat stubble.


in this light should we also deregulate the chemical, refining, and power producers so they no longer need to worry about meeting discharge limits on any number of chemical and particulate compounds. My wife works in the industry and she well knows the financial impacts that these companies must bear so they can use the surface waters for their industrial processes and be allowed to return that water back to the system. Of course I guess we ignore those downstream who remove the surface water from the system to use for drinking purposes. The same line of argument can be made for the discharge from smokestacks. Certainly a burden to the industry but is it reasonable to suggest that these industries do not need to comply with restrictions on their discharges?


The San Franciso Bay area has restrictions on the burning of wood in fireplaces and woodstoves at certain times of the year when inversion layers form. Should we prohibit the burning or allow the air to be filled with soot particles as the estimated 2 million fireplaces and woodstoves burn firewood? Afterall in the winter time they are only responsible for 1/3 of the air pollution due to particulates. Should we care or continue to do the same thing over and over again all the while expecting air quality to improve all on its own?

If you dont want to breathe dust, stay indoors.
If you dont like the way farmers raise YOUR food, stop eating, or grow all your OWN food

heaven forbid that an industry is required to change land-use practices to reduce their impact on the environment and the health of the people that reside in towns and cities adjacent to ag land. I really don't think you realize the magnitude of the problem and how it adversely affects millions of people. It is like riding behind that bus spewing nasty, and dangerous, soot. Rolling up the windows on the car does not eliminate, or even reduce, your exposure just as the finest, and most dangerously sized, particulates get into houses exposing those who are most susceptable to adverse health effects.

People, adults and children, are going to find it difficult to get to school and work unless they agree to be exposed to dangerous levels of pollutants so the farmer can continue to burn and till (when there is no pressing need) as they wish. If we don't like the price of gasoline should we all rally around and demand that discharge limits be repealed for the refining and producing industries? Or if the power bill goes up should we demand that the PTB remove all dishcharge limits from coal and oil burning power plants? The people living nearby will have a great impact on their QOL and potential health problems but they can always move can't they?

Besides which, it does the farmers no good at all to lose their topsoil to the wind or ocean. We were watching a documentary on the dust storms during the great depression a few eeks ago. Seems that plowing the soil was a major factor in the huge dust storms and the resulting poverty of many farmers in the dust bowl. People were literally buried alive by the topsoil as it blew elsewhere. Ah, the good old days.

Our old farm in Colorado had a weird raised berm ground silo. Never could figure it out. Then one day this really old guy came by visiting, seemed he worked there many decades before back when it was a mustang ranch. That raised berm silo used to be a dug out watering hole. The farm had been tilled since then until the top 15 feet of soil had been removed.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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? :rotfl: 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 :confused: )

[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.

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.

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

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.