FSA county committee nominations begin; EPA delays spill regulations for milk tanks
Washington Ag Today June 15, 2010 The USDA begins accepting nominations today for candidates to serve on local Farm Service Agency county committees. The county committees help make farm programs decisions affecting producers and make certain the programs are fairly, equitably and properly administered. So, FSA Administrator Jonathan Coppess says; Coppess: “This is in the producers’ best interest to get a good, fair representative county committee in place. This is the first line of appeal when a decision by the agency you may disagree with. So you want to make sure you have good representation on the committees and the starting of that is June 15th and the nomination process.” Which lasts until August 2nd. Voting on candidates will begin in November. Producers may nominate themselves or others and organizations representing minorities and women may also nominate candidates. You can find nomination forms on the FSA website. The Environmental Protection Agency has pushed back the deadline for dairy farms to comply with the Spill, Prevention, Control and Countermeasure regulations regarding milk storage tanks. EPA will be extending the deadline until early 2011. The National Milk Producers Federation had written the EPA on the issue expressing its concern that the regulation could require a significant number of farms to get outside certification of their facilities. The goal of spill prevention regulations is to prevent oil spills into waters of the United States and the butterfat in milk is regarded as oil under the law. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net. ?
