Things I have learned as a sheep farmer
How to properly fill out 20+ page mandatory extensive survey (income, expenses, equipment listing and values, land values, etc) for the USDA census of agriculture How to creatively fill out a 5 pag...
Forum Discussion
dturm wrote:
Lest we think that all gvmt and regulation is bad, is the Chesapeake Bay in better condition, or better condition than it would have been without the herbicide/pesticide, clean water, regulation on animal waste disposal regulations and are those regulations "reasonable" despite the added work and costs for all of us?
We found some of the information gathered intrusive and not useful for monitoring environmental or farming issues (we had to pull out our tax returns to answer survey questions). We find the forms are all about big ag and not set-up for small farms. We find the regs are geared towards cattle and not really relevant for other livestock. We don't mind the regs to clean up the watershed; we don't like that the regs are not applied equally to all those in the watershed (other states and homeowners).
Note: the fastest growing source of nutrient run off into the bay is from lawns. MD just proposed restrictions on fertilizing lawns which has homeowners pissed.
