Our Waterkeepers are working to reduce agricultural pollution in the local waterways of the Chesapeake and Coastal Bays watersheds. As the largest source of water pollution, reducing pollution from agriculture lands and industry is essential to meeting the pollution reduction goals of the Chesapeake Bay Cleanup Plan (TMDL). We are working toward a vision of what our agriculture system should be by focusing more on solutions to the pervasive problems with the industrial agriculture system. Our priorities include improving investment in water and climate-friendly agricultural outcomes, and slowing the loss of farmland and preventing sprawling development, as well as ensuring greater transparency and accountability for the agricultural industry. In addition, as we move toward a new agricultural system, we must amplify our communities’ voices and right the wrongs of the racist public policies and programs that have only aided white farmers.
Our strategies include:
- Increasing and improving implementation of conservation funding and promoting strong regulations and their enforcement to strengthen water quality outcomes.
- Creating a level playing field for sustainable, diversified and regenerative agriculture.
- Demanding improved regulation of large-scale animal feeding operations and associated processing facilities and ensuring these industries are responsibly managing their discharges in a way that protects the air, soil, and water.
- Keeping excess poultry manure, fertilizer, and harmful chemicals from polluting our waterways.
- Prioritizing equity and justice in all policies and strategies to address how polluting agriculture facilities, and agriculture policy and funding has disproportionately harmed nonwhite, low-income communities.
The Fair Farms Campaign (2015 – 2022) brought together farmers, Waterkeepers, conservation groups, green businesses, and policy-makers to promote sustainable agriculture practices that regenerate the land, diversify local economies, and protect our water and air. Fair Farms, a public education and engagement initiative, partnered with consumers, businesses, farmers working outside the industrial system, and allied nonprofit organizations, to seek greater transparency from our elected officials and big food producers, and establish limits on pollution.
The Initiative for Change on the Eastern Shore (2019 – 2023) combined legal, regulatory, and policy expertise, along with community partnerships and strong research and data analysis skills. All of this expertise enabled us to work together to achieve our goal of reducing pollution from industrial agriculture on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore. Our collaborative formed in 2019, in part, in response to neighborhood groups and local coalitions that sprang up to challenge factory farm expansions and encroachment into their communities. Our efforts were aligned with community priorities and ultimately aimed to protect and improve public and environmental health on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore. Collaboration partners included Assateague Coastal Trust, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Environmental Integrity Project, Chesapeake Legal Alliance, and Center for Progressive Reform.
Protecting Farmlands & Water from PFAS in Sewage Sludge
Waterkeepers Condemn EPA’s Decision to Halt Rulemaking to Reduce Water Pollution From Slaughterhouses
PFAS & Sewage Sludge Bill 2025
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