IL CORN MEMBER TALKS COVER CROPS WITH U.S. EPA

Jun 13, 2017  |  Today's News |  ICGA |  Conservation

Heather Hampton+Knodle, American Agri-Women Vice President of Resolutions and Vital Issues, was recently featured in a YouTube video posted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In the video, Hampton+Knodle, who is also a member of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, described the voluntary best management practices that she and her husband undertake on their farm in Montgomery County. The EPA video is part of the Agency’s newly invigorated outreach to our nation’s farmers and ranchers, part of their Back to Basics initiative under the Trump Administration. The video falls right in line with IL Corn’s thoughts on the issue, that voluntary initiatives like those outlined in the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy, are the preferred methods.

EPA, under the leadership of Administrator Pruitt, is engaging with agriculture in both traditional and non-traditional means, such as the outreach on social media. Here, in the video https://youtu.be/hUuBXpP-m6E, EPA clearly puts farmers in the spotlight for their work. EPA also posted the following items on their various social media channels, highlighting that farmers are America’s frontline environmentalists:

Underway currently is a request by Administrator Pruitt to state governors, asking them to work with their departments of agriculture to put together state-level comments on the WOTUS rule. IL Corn has reached out to the State of Illinois to provide input on those comments. You can read more about that here: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/332515-epa-seeks-governors-input-in-rewriting-obama-water-rule