FARMING PRACTICES

IN Michigan, farmers are invited to operate within a set of principles known as Generally Accepted Agricultural Management Practices, or GAAMPs. It’s not a set of legal ordinances, but merely a suggested guide to responsible agriculture.

According to the critics of big agriculture—and the resulting big manure—that’s a failing of Michigan’s farming policies. If responsible farming practices are an option, then time, weather and economics will sometimes make it an option not chosen.

One of the principles of Michigan’s GAAMPs addresses the issue of applying liquid manure on frozen ground.

• Application of manure to frozen or snow-covered soils should be avoided.

• Winter application of manure is the least desirable in terms of nutrient utilization and prevention of nonpoint pollution.

• Frozen soils and snow cover will limit nutrient movement into the soil and greatly increase the risk of manure being lost to surface waters by runoff and erosion during thaws or early spring rains.

Knowledge of farm management isn’t necessary to understand that if liquid manure is applied to frozen ground, the risk of runoff into ditches and drains is great, either immediately or when a thaw gets underway.

Farmers got a break last year when frozen ground wasn’t all that common due to the unusually warm winter. This year it’s a different story. This became evident Sunday when a large quantity of manure flowed across frozen ground and into Toad Creek, which feeds into Lime Creek and then into Bean Creek.

Manure will show up in streams over and over again in the coming weeks when warmer weather leads to runoff from fields that are already dark with liquid manure, where ponds of frozen manure lie unable to be absorbed into the soil.

Farmers are quick to point out the benefit of returning nutrients to the soil. They’re right; this is how agriculture has worked for centuries. But the vast quantities of liquid manure from large facilities changes the process. Spraying manure on frozen ground is often little more than waste disposal.

Farmers both large and small scale talk about their stewardship of the environment and their need to protect land and water. Practices that lead to contamination like Sunday’s mess suggest that good stewardship can run shallow.

Illegal discharges into state waters are becoming quite common in the area, both through bad practices and by accident. We’re pleased to hear that the state Department of Environmental Quality office in Jackson is ready to take stronger action. Either agricultural practices must change or paying fines for contamination will soon become a part of the cost of doing business for large farming operations.