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April
25, 2006
EPA's National Strategy for Agriculture
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Highlights
- Farm, Ranch, and Rural Communities Federal Advisory Committee
- EPA
Administrator Stephen Johnson Interview in Pork Magazine
- EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock Interview on Renewable Energy
- Counselor to the EPA Administrator for Agricultural Policy Jon Scholl article on EMSs
- Sign Up for News Service
For assistance in obtaining the content of the PDF documents on this page, please contact the Ag Center at 1-888-663-2155.
EPA is pleased to announce the development and release of EPA's National Strategy for Agriculture. This document underlines the Agency’s commitment to a strong partnership with the agriculture community to assist in fulfilling our mission of protecting human health and the environment. Communication, collaboration and innovation are the basic tools emphasized in this strategy for constructing these essential partnerships. To read the full press release, please visit EPA's Newsroom. The full text of EPA's National Strategy for Agriculture is below.
EPA's National Strategy for Agriculture
Download PDF Version (PDF) (5 pp, 50K)
I. Introduction:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is committed to protecting the Nation’s food, water, land and air for generations to come. These are goals that are important to American farmers, as well. This National Strategy for Agriculture sets forth a framework in which to accomplish these important goals by:
1) Increasing the awareness and understanding within EPA of agricultural impacts and benefits to human health and the environment and working across media in a more systems approach to environmental protection;
2) Working with the agricultural sector – including production, processing and distribution – in developing and demonstrating environmental protection solutions that express the value of farmland environmental stewardship activities to the public;
3) Coordinating research and technology development and transfer so the needs of agriculture and EPA can be more efficiently met; and,
4) Identifying existing environmental measures and developing new ones, where appropriate, to demonstrate environmental improvement related to agriculture.
EPA's interaction with the agricultural sector will occur within the current programs and organizational structure of the Agency. Because agricultural operations tend to be multi-unit operations functioning as a system, their problems and solutions are often multi-media in nature. Our challenge will be to use existing authorities (PDF, 23 pages, 887KB) while crossing programmatic and organizational boundaries to help the industry address environmental protection concerns. A sampling of performance measures from the Agency’s Strategic Plan have been attached at the end of this document to demonstrate the role that agriculture can play in protecting the environment.
Through this National Strategy for Agriculture, EPA will work in cooperation and collaboration with many stakeholders to encourage environmental protection solutions in agriculture.
II. Vision
An environment where the agricultural sector is a source of environmental solutions and benefits contributing to and recognized for improvement of the Nation’s environmental quality; where the Nation's agriculture is sustainable, economically viable and global in nature; and, where non-traditional, innovative and voluntary approaches are given equal opportunities for success with traditional regulatory approaches.
III. Implementation of Goals
A: The EPA Administrator, Assistant Administrators, and Regional Administrators will identify the impact of EPA’s rules (PDF, 23 pages, 887KB), policies, guidance, grants and other activities on agriculture as part of routine practice and, where appropriate, will coordinate these activities with USDA and/or other relevant parties. In the context of these rules and policies, senior EPA managers will work together across media and will identify the roles and contributions by agriculture for solutions to achieve greater environmental protection. The following objectives will be implemented to achieve this goal:
a. Create a greater understanding of the Federal infrastructure for dealing with agriculture including production, marketing, economics, management, trade and other international agreements.
b. Foster a holistic multi-media approach to environmental protection and public health relative to agriculture.
c. Emphasize innovative and cost effective approaches to environmental protection.
d. Use traditional approaches to environmental protection relative to agriculture where they are working effectively or where innovative, collaborative programs don’t prove successful.
B. Work toward and demonstrate environmental protection with the agricultural sector through collaboration, innovative and voluntary programs, financial incentives, and traditional regulatory approaches. The following objectives will be implemented to achieve this goal:
a. Develop a greater understanding of EPA’s mission and programs and their impact upon production agriculture.
b. Consider market strategies for conservation to bring about larger scale environmental protection and resource enhancement.
c. Increase education, incentives and funding opportunities for agricultural compliance with environmental protection goals.
d. Consider input from the agricultural sector in EPA rulemaking and strategic plans, in addition to other stakeholders already routinely involved.
e. Enhance awareness in the agricultural community about agriculture’s impact on the environment, EPA’s program and regulatory activities, and opportunities to interact with the Agency on issues of mutual concern.
f. Continue development and maintenance of mechanisms and for a for improved communication with the agricultural community on all relevant agency actions at the national, state and local levels.
g. Strive for greater use of collaborative efforts among state, local and other federal agencies for identifying and addressing agricultural and environmental priorities.
h. Provide results, in collaboration with the research community, to the agriculture sector through outreach and web site publications.
i. Embrace demonstrated innovative approaches to compliance (i.e., performance based programs) and demonstrate the effectiveness of these approaches, assisting with technology transfer as appropriate.
j. Support research and development for technologies that will assist with environmental protection.
C. Develop an effective communication strategy and marketing network to better communicate with agriculture, assist with technology transfer and show environmental results. The following objectives will be implemented to achieve this goal:
a. Increase communication on issues related to agriculture and the environment.
b. Centralize and disseminate results from EPA funded projects and agreements so that research and technology development results are readily available to the public.
c. Communicate proactively with the agricultural industry on emerging issues.
D. Identify existing environmental measures (see Attachment A for examples) and, where needed, modify them or develop new ones to demonstrate environmental improvements that can be achieved through new practices or technologies. The following objectives will be implemented to achieve this goal:
a. Identify and assess environmental improvements related to agriculture and, where appropriate, use performance measures similar to or in harmony with those used by USDA.
b. Develop or improve environmental outcome measures which better capture all work related to agriculture or better reflect the environmental improvement the Agency needs to demonstrate. Such measures should include partnerships and collaborations such as cross media performance measures and measures which address the goal of coordinating research and technology development and transfer.
c. Incorporate national and regional agricultural priorities into EPA’s strategic planning processes while maintaining opportunities for local and flexible solutions for local challenges.More information
Pollution Prevention, Best Management Practices, and Conservation
Environmental Management Systems (EMS)
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EPA's Ag Center. 