Bigger corn crop this year in Md. fuels fear of increased runoff of nutrients in the bay

The Baltimore Sun

It's been 15 years since Maryland farmers planted so much corn.

With prices higher, the amount planted this season is up 10 percent compared with last year, for a total of 540,000 acres.

But what is good for the farmers' business may not be good for the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

That is the conclusion of a joint report by the Mid-Atlantic Water Quality Program, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The concern, stated in the report released last week, is that a marked increase in corn production could result in a significant boost in the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus going into the bay.

'A delicate line'

"We are walking a delicate line here," said Thomas Simpson, a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park and coordinator of Chesapeake Bay agricultural programs.

"Farmers are getting high prices for their corn. That's a good thing. We are not opposed to that. But we are going to have to go a lot further in our conservation efforts to protect the bay," Simpson said.

Simpson, the lead author of the report, is the regional coordinator of the Mid-Atlantic Water Quality Program, a consortium of nine universities in Maryland and surrounding states.

It is not just Maryland farmers who are planting more corn this year, farmers in states throughout the bay watershed also have increased corn production.

The higher corn prices have been driven at least in part by the demand for corn as use in the production of ethanol as a fuel.

According to the USDA, farmers here and in Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania planted nearly a quarter of a million additional acres this year.

That's expected to be just the beginning - the region's farmers are expected to increase corn planting in the watershed by 500,000 to 1 million acres over the next few years, Simpson said.

"Even under relatively well-managed crop rotations, increased corn acreage will lead to increased nitrogen fertilizer use, and an increase in nitrogen pollution," Simpson said.

"We need to really step up our conservation efforts to minimize the environmental impact of the demand for ethanol," he said.

The report, "Biofuels and Water Quality: Meeting the Challenge and Protecting the Environment," estimates that the rise in corn output could lead to an additional 16 million pounds of nitrogen and 1.6 million pounds of phosphorus trickling into the bay and its tributaries annually.

One answer is more government money for conservation programs, said William C. Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

"Farmers have long demonstrated their willingness to help pay to implement conservation tools, but each year thousands of applications for cost-share conservation funding are denied because of a lack of state and federal government funding," Baker said.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen is among those pushing for an additional $250 million for the region for conservation programs.

Federal funds

A draft version of the 2007 federal farm bill already added $150 million for conservation projects by bay region farmers.

If both are approved, the two measures would mean $400 million over five years, more than double what the bay region gets from federal agriculture conservation programs, said Van Hollen, who is a Democrat.

Corn is the main ingredient in about 90 percent of the ethanol produced nationwide. The other 10 percent is composed of other grains such as sorghum, barley and wheat.

Corn is used because the technologies are proven; fermentation is relatively easy, and feedstock production, storage and handling capabilities are in place.

For the past couple of decades, corn prices ranged between $2 and $2.50 a bushel. They have topped $4 a bushel this year.

Ethanol production is driven by a federal requirement that oil refiners use 7.5 billion gallons of the alternative fuel by 2012.

Making ethanol from cellulose products, such as switch grass, would go a long way toward easing the pollution problem, but the development of the technology to make that option viable is five years off, Simpson said.

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