spin off of the below post for pesticide restrictions.

I have mixed feelings on this. First let me say I am a full time conventional farmer. I use fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides. Here in South central Mn. we have had unusually wet weather for past 3 or 4 seasons. Hence everybody is adding more drainage tile. Because we are getting larger rain events many of them are putting stand pipes in the low spots of their fields to take those 2" rains away before crop drowns out. You are suppose to stay 90' away from stand pipes with RUP. I still use a row crop cultivator so I do in fact stay away from my 3 standpipes with the RUP. But the bto. cannot be bothered with that restriction and they go right over the top when they are laying down their pre. I see them do it all the time. As a matter of fact I had the local co-op put down my pre 2 years ago. It contained atrizine which is a RUP. I told the operator where there was a stand pipe on the edge of that farm along the road ditch. He had no idea why he needed to know that. And then get this. That same stand pipe has thistles growing around it in the road ditch. And I saw the state come along with their sprayer in the summer and just soaked them thistles right over the top of my stand pipe. I have know idea if they are spraying wit a RUP. but I bet it is. It really fried those thistles.
Now that being said, all our field tile here in So. central Mn. is a direct link to the Mn. river, one of the most polluted rivers in the nation. Filled with nitrates. The townies say us farmers are killing that river. The farmers say it is not us as we wouldn't pay to put down more then labeled amount of spray which is only couple pints per acre. It is you townies who spray gallons on your 1/4 acre lawn because God help us if you have a dandelion in your lawn. Wake up farmers. Of course it's us. Not entirely but we play a part in this whole mess. Farm Bureau and other farm groups flat out deny that farmers are adding to the problem at all. When I see sprayers go right over the top of stand pipes I know for certain we are part of the problem. If we don't clean up our act you are going to see the govt. put restrictions in place for use of fert. and pesticides. Just mark my word. Here in Mn. the govt. had to create laws to place buffer strips along waterways. 30' for some, 90 ft. for some. Many farms had berms and grass waterways where needed along there water ditches and were taking excellent care. But because a few were careless and neglectful, now everybody has to do it. It's the law.

It is everyone's fault.

Good post! I farm and raise cattle full-time near the MN/SD border. Everyone insists they aren't at fault, but we all contribute to water quality problems. Good stewardship would reduce the need for more regulations.

Lon

Thing is here in MN the Minnesota river flows across the state from west to east. The area is flows though has very few large towns and no cities except right at the very end where it empties into the Mississippi river. There isn't enough urban lawns in the watershed to put that much nitrates in the water. MN figures that about 70% or those nitrates come from agriculture.

OK, I'm not vilifying anyone so don't get upset.

For those who claim it's nature or city folks? Claiming that farmers don't put on anymore than bare minimum so it all gets used? Prove it. So me scientific data to prove that very little to no nitrates are leaching off of your fields. Fact of life. If you use nitrates on your field some will leach out into the soil and eventually work it's way in the water shed and water table. Just how this stuff works.

Now think about this. People demand clean water. You tell them that farmers are not at fault and they can find study after study after study that says 50-70% or more is the farmers fault. In those people's eyes, say in Flint MI? What does that make you? It doesn't make you the friendly farmer using safe methods to produce safe foods. It makes you the villain and someone not to be trusted. You need to be mindful of that image. After all, farmers only make up about 1% of the voting population.

Rick

A few thoughts on how to use pesticide and chemical restrictions to help US farmers and maybe a worst case scenario if US farmers continue to resist environmental protections.

Right now 40 percent of the US corn production is going into ethanol production. That won't and can't go on forever because petroleum and natural gas supplies are also expanding even faster than corn production and will soon undercut the profitability of continuing ethanol production (unless corn prices fall drastically). When ethanol is eventually phased out there will be an extreme glut of corn in the US market, especially if China decides to shifts it's pork production to South America and by-pass the US pork market. That could possibly trigger a crash in the farm economy as big or bigger than the 1980's farm crisis.

For generations of US farmers are geared to expansion and increasing production. Can and will million US farmers be able to cooperate well enough to cut corn production by 20 to 40 percent (2 billion to 4 billion fewer bushels)? That seems doubtful, unless the federal government adopts another 1960's style set-aside program that could cost taxpayers hundreds of billion dollars a year.

In the mean time US farmers seem to be telling the US consumers (tax payers and voters) that:
they must eat foods with GMO so US farmers can make more money;
they must pay more taxes to remove nitrates from their water so US farmers can make more money;
they must put up with more and more pesticides in their food and in their water so US farmers can make more money;
they must more property taxes to repairs to rural roads because US Farmers don't want to pay taxes;
They can't live in the country or have better roads because US farmers need every acre of farmland available to make more money.

Eventually the voters and taxpayers might have a choice between:
A. paying trillions of dollars in taxes to prevent an inevitable farm crisis;
or
B. pass simple restrictions on pesticides, fertilizers and GMOs that could:
cut overproduction enough to get back in alignment with demand and stabilize corn prices at still profitable level;
improve water quality;
deliver GMO free and chemical free foods;
prevent a major crash in the farm economy;
at practically no cost to US taxpayers or farmers.

Are US farmers smart enough to use environmental protections to work in their benefit?

This is a thick stand of tillage radish used as a winter cover crop. Planted after a crop was harvested in September. At this growth stage and heavy plant population the taproots on these radishes have probably collected and stored 100 lbs/acre of N and another 100 lbs/acre of P. N and P that could have been washed off into Midwest rivers and streams but will not be because the nutrients are locked up in the plants roots. And there will not be any soil erosion from this field due to the plants leaves and roots holding & protecting the soil during winter storm events. We have solutions right here in front of us to some of the questions you posed about water pollution from sediment, fertilizer runoff from farm fields.

We all live down-stream.

My area proves the Nitrate from lawns and Golf Courses theory is a smoke screen.We have almost no large farming operations in the area but lots and lots of subdivisions with big lawns and golf courses. We do not have Nitrates in our water,rivers,springs or wells.And yes its constantly checked everywhere because of the Chesapeake Bay restrictions.Go up to PA where the big dairy and crops farms are located and the water fountains have a Nitrate warning on them.

You're right. It's not only the Farmers, but Homeowners, Golf Courses, even Shopping Centers and Mall parking lots contribute to polluted creeks, streams and rivers. We are all to blame, too much has been compromised for money. We all need to be good Stewards of the land anyway we can.

What is an RUP?

Restricted Use Pesticide.

That looks fantastic. I do some custom organic farming for a neighbor. Last year after I harvested their field pea's, he had me plant a cover crop blend of radishes, pea's, soybeans and corn(from when I cleaned out the planter earlier that season). When that came up it looked similar to your picture, only much more dense. Then in Nov. I ran the disk ripper through it. It not only held the nutrients in place over winter but all that "trash" held the ground in place during spring run-off. Water erosion is usually a problem for organic farming because of all the tillage needed for weed control but in this case it was not a problem and I harvested 144/bpa. corn off that field this year. Remember this is organic so no additional fertilizer. In contrast the corn yield on my conventional farm was 175/bpa. Not that much difference considering all the commercial fert. I dumped on mine. He had his organic corn contracted for $8/bushel. The conventional corn market today for me at the ethanol plant is $3.51. You do the math.

We chemical farmers are not innocent by any means. I chose to use all of the chemicals farmers commonly use. Do I like it? No! If I would give up chemicals and use cultivation to handle the weeds my farm would wash down the river like it did years ago before chemicals. I do not want to donate land to the gulf of Mexico so I chose to no till and use chemicals. One practice I adopted to try to reduce the chemicals is to have the drainage stand pipes in the middle of a 60x60 foot brome grass patch. Hopefully the brome grass will filter out a few chemicals and I certainly will not be spraying over the top of the stand pipes. Farming around those grass patches is a time consuming pain in the rear but I feel it is worth the bother. As far as I know I am the only farmer in the county to do this. I also split apply nitrogen, one shot in the spring right before planting and the second shot when the corn is getting tall. I know this will not keep all of the chemicals out of the water but maybe I am reducing the flow a bit.

I'm not saying some of the problem is not farmers nor lawn/grounds keeping. What I do see is the lack of grass waterways in fields here. We have been using them since the 60's at least. We just raise the equipment up over them as we cross them. Don't spray them and don't have wash ditches in the hollows. I realize this does not solve the chemical/fertilizer runoff problem. Though if we had so much run off of chemicals it would seem like the waterways would be dying from the runoff. What I do see on our place is the waterway have been there so long they have filled in such they are trying to run water around them along the sides as it is lower than the grass. So I now stagger them to hold the soil in some fields.
I have tried no thrill planting and would starve to death on the yields from it. We do get much heavier faster rains than when I was a kid 50 years ago.
Now as all this ground gets built up the problem will be being able to feed the masses as the population increases. Then the price of grains will get more profitable with lack of supply. Corn will not be able to be used for alcohol production of any kind . While I am not a big user of nitrogen fertilizers or chemicals I do use them. I only use about 100 pounds of N per acre on corn and label rates on herbicides seldom any fungicides or insecticides. We do raise hay on the most highly erodible fields or keep them in pasture and not eaten off to bare ground either. We may plant them to corn about every 10to 30 years to recover the natural fertilizers from the livestock or the alfalfa sod as the seeding wears out.