Comments from the CEO

Chris Henney shares updates on the water quality front

It often feels like my time is consumed with water quality and nutrient management issues. Fortunately, much of that time is spent sharing success stories such as the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Certification Program or highlighting the proactive efforts of our members and their farmer customers. Most recently, I was proud to share the achievements of Ohio’s agribusinesses before the joint ag committee convened to review Senate Bill 1 in June.

A great recent example of sharing agriculture’s success is that of OABA members Legacy Farmers Cooperative and GROWMARK, Inc., who hosted State Senator Rob McColley of Ohio 1^st Senate District at a 4R Certified agronomy facility in McComb, Ohio. (Nothing goes further toward sharing agriculture’s story than hosting your local legislators at your facility. If you have interest in engaging with your local legislators in this way, contact me for assistance.)

Unfortunately, the past several months I have spent too much time defending our industry’s practices and the use of fertilizer as a basic nutrient to grow crops here in Ohio. You’ll recall these recent articles in News & Notes:

• In May, OABA joined our friends at the Ohio Corn & Wheat Association and the Ohio Soybean Association to express our concern with the findings in the 2018 Integrated Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment Report.
• And back in March, I shared my concern with new mandates being proposed by the Ohio EPA, specifically a call to label commercial fertilizer as an agricultural pollutant.
• Also in March, Ohio’s leading agricultural organizations joined together to send this message to Governor Kasich, updating him on the voluntary efforts and research undertaken by the agriculture industry to improve water quality. 

Flash forward to today and, despite the numerous efforts by the agricultural community to improve water quality, we now find Governor Kasich apparently abandoning his self-proclaimed, common-sense approach to governance in favor of an executive order placing restrictions on agricultural practices in Ohio. While the order has yet to be announced, I believe it will include much of what was proposed by Ohio EPA this past March.

You might be asking yourself, “why aren’t our agricultural leaders sitting down with the Governor and discussing these concerns; surely the Governor doesn’t want to put such additional onerous regulations on Ohio’s number 1 industry, right?” Well, I’ll share that we have certainly tried. In fact, earlier this month Ohio’s agricultural organizations, including OABA, sent this letter to Governor Kasich because of our frustration with the lack of dialogue on the subject.

Time will tell how all this plays out, but I’ll leave you with a few takeaways:

• It is crucial that our industry continue to proactively adopt and maintain practices that are defendable not only in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion.
• We need greater support and participation in the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Certification Program from agricultural retailers.
• And, most importantly, we need to call out the “bad actors” in our business and do what we can to move them towards greater stewardship and, where applicable, regulatory compliance.

As I often say, we are all in this together! Please reach out with your ideas, concerns or if you’d just like to discuss the issues. You can reach me at 614-326-7520 Ext. 2 or chenney@oaba.net.

-Chris