LANSING – Urban farms with livestock cannot be verified as following proper environmental practices under standards approved, with some reservations, Wednesday by the Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The new Michigan Agriculture Environmental Assurance Program standards follow recent generally accepted agriculture management practices that say category 4 farms, those in high population residential areas, are not appropriate locations for animal agriculture.

While the commission unanimously approved the MAEAP standards, Commissioner Dru Montri of Bath was concerned they were sending a message counter to the work of a subcommittee trying to develop GAAMPs that would allow animal agriculture in urban areas.

“There are a lot of urban farms that are following very environmentally sound practices,” Montri said.

While he acknowledged there were properly run urban farms, Jim Johnson, director of the Environmental Stewardship Division, said allowing farms not following GAAMPs to be MAEAP verified could cause confusion. He said farmers being MAEAP verified could use that in a nuisance case to argue they are in compliance with the Right to Farm Act.

He said the law creating the MAEAP also requires the commission to review the standards annually, so at most they would be in place for a year if the commission approves new GAAMPs that would allow some urban animal farms.

Commissioner Trevor Meachum of Hartford had offered to change the standard to indicate an urban farm “may” be verified. He said that would allow verification to be up to the staff technician to decide whether to verify based on current standards, he said.

“Right now, the answer would be no,” he said.

Department Chief Deputy Director Gordon Wenk said the change would only make verification more confusing because farmers would not necessarily know ahead of time whether they could be verified and staff might also be unclear the standards they would have to use.

But Wenk said the department has also classified some farms in otherwise residential areas as category 3 because there were actually few houses around the properties.

PROCESSING: The commission approved the first standards under the new Right to Process Act.

As with Right to Farm, the law and the standards are intended to protect processors from nuisance complaints as long as they meet the standards.

The standards were approved without changes from what was presented in July, which includes no standards for fugitive dust. Officials could not determine where to set standards for dust that did not conflict with state air quality standards.

EASEMENT: The commission Wednesday approved the first dissolution of a permanent agricultural easement.

The property use change would allow the Department of Transportation to move a bridge as a replacement is built.

Meachum supported the resolution, but raised concerns that the original property owner opposed the change (the current owner supports it) and that the department could not provide a cost estimate for purchasing the land.

Officials said negotiations were still ongoing for the purchase, but the department would have to pay about $4,000 for past tax benefits from the easement.

Officials also noted that the prior owner of the land, who had put the easement on the land, he said he was opposed to removing it, but declined to testify to the commission and had not yet sent the letter he said he would write.

INVASIVE SPECIES: The commission is expected to move next month to ban possession of water soldier, an aquatic plant that officials said create both environmental and human health concerns.

Nicholas Popoff, supervisor of the Aquatic Species and Regulatory Affairs Unit in the Department of Natural Resources, said the plant forms a mat over lakes, which can crowd out other plants as well as make boating difficult. But he said the plant also has sharp-edged leaves, which make it dangerous to swim through stands of the plant.

The order expected next month would prohibit possession of the plant. The agriculture commission has authority over plants and insects, while the Natural Resources Commission has oversight of other invasive animals.

Popoff said the plant, native to Europe, has so far only been found along the Trent River in Canada, where officials believe it was introduced through a water garden. He said it is not offered for sale in Michigan.

Popoff also presented a couple of the animals expected to see action from the Natural Resources Commission. The red swamp crayfish, native to Louisiana, would be banned under an expected order. He said the crustacean is sold for food in the state, but has been purchased for bait as well. He said the animal would likely be impossible to eradicate if a breeding population developed because of its habit of burrowing.

The rusty crayfish, however, is expected to move from prohibited to restricted. Though an invasive, Popoff said it has become naturalized in the state and the change would allow it to be caught for food.

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