Chesapeake Heroes: One for All

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Chesapeake Heroes is an article series examining local organizations and citizens working toward a healthier environment.

Secretary of Agriculture Kevin Atticks advocates for Maryland’s farmers, producers, small businesses (and large), education, smart energy policy, and environmental conservation 

Good news is on the horizon for Maryland’s diverse and vibrant agriculture industry. Our Department of Agriculture’s creativity and commitment to farmers was invigorated when Maryland Governor Wes Moore appointed Grow and Fortify LLC founder Kevin Atticks as Secretary of Agriculture in 2023. Atticks joined an administration aiming to create a more competitive Maryland and brings an impressive background to his new role at the table. 

For two decades, he worked on behalf of local wineries, breweries, distilleries, and grape growers while promoting and advocating for Maryland’s wine industry and supporting value-added agriculture through an organization called Grow and Fortify LLC. The first assessment of the state’s value-added agricultural industry was published by Grow and Fortify. Atticks explains, “Wineries, breweries, creameries, meat processing, agritourism, equine, and dozens of other industry segments yield 74,000 jobs and bring a total economic impact of over $20.6 billion annually to the state’s economy…We need to expand our agricultural base, provide farmers with new opportunities to grow profit, and educate our citizens about the incredible products grown and produced locally.”

In early 2024, Atticks delivered a stirring keynote address in his own very friendly voice, to Future Harvest’s annual conference entitled, Agriculture as the Solution. The keynote speech was so inspiring we decided to find out more from Secretary Atticks, interviewing him to gain perspective of his first year in office.

The Speech

His main points (paraphrased) about the opportunities and challenges to Maryland agriculture included: 

Agriculture is Food. Local is more resilient, more nutritious, more available. Food grown locally is a boon for our schools, foodbanks, farmers. Subsidies in food are not necessarily for the healthiest food. The goal is to get the money where it needs to go for those who need it most, such as food grown for our school system. 

Agriculture is Economy. Farming is the No.1 commercial industry in our state…and guess who knows that? Farmers! Guess who doesn’t know? Everybody else! When you think about the economy and how agriculture supports it—food obviously—think about the jobs in rural areas. When farms come, so, too, do homes. This grows a semblance of population within a rural area, which then grows business, community, and economy. Beyond that is tax revenue. Farming is a driver of business to other local venues. 

Agriculture is Conservation. The act of growing is a move of conservation. When you are working the land, and you need that land to be fertile, you use practices to grow the soil health and quality—plant cover crops, plant trees, making sure to keep nutrients on the farm. The act of agriculture is much about the surrounding ecosystem. This could be a whole presentation about the Bay, air quality, and carbon sequestration, but it doesn’t need to be, because those things should be built into our everyday standard practices. 

Agriculture is Preservation. Our agency in the state and also our counties pay a lot to purchase development rights so that agriculture can be preserved. The best way to preserve the land is to make agriculture profitable. One of our former secretaries said the P in preservation stands for profitability. It’s true we’re paying farmers and landowners for their development rights because we can pay more than they are making off their product. In our country, money is going to a dozen different people and corporations before it ever gets to the farmer. Figuring out how to make our farmers more profitable is a top priority in our agency. In the meantime, we are buying up as much development right access as we can because perpetuity is a pretty nice thing. 

Agriculture is Energy. This is a little controversial because in Maryland we’ve got a very strong goal to be fossil fuel independent in the 2030s. There’s a real push to put commercial solar on our farms in a big way. We believe there’s a way to integrate energy generation on farms so that farms in rural areas are doing their part for the grid. That can be done with agrivoltaics (the use of land for both agriculture and solar energy generation), wind power, biodigestics, and more. Unfamiliar with these new terms? They’re worth keeping an eye on in the agriculture world.

Agriculture is Education. I believe education would fix everything! If every child and adult in the state knew where food comes from, we’d be in a much better place because we would start choosing how and where to spend our money. This is an opportunity to learn how food grows, an opportunity to grow for yourself and your community, and the spark to connect with farming as a product to buy, as a field of study, as a career. There are incredible opportunities to learn how food grows by visiting a farm…for example, by picking pumpkins at a farm or following Maryland’s Ice Cream Trail. Now it’s up to farms and family to bring people to a farm, be it a creamery, berry picking, or a winery. We also need more FFA (Future Farmers of America) programs to engage students.

Agriculture is Tourism. Visitors spent $19.2 billion [here in Maryland] in 2022. Visitors will travel 1 to 1.5 hours to local destinations. People come in from way out of town and bring their money and spend it at your place, the local restaurant, and local businesses.

Support for Thinking Differently. We need to make sure we are creating the situation that if someone wants to get into the small animal business, the creamery business, beer, wine, spirits, or kombucha, we have created a regulatory situation so that it can happen here.

Challenges to Maryland Farms. Development pressure is intense, largely because of our proximity to major metropolitan areas. We also have other issues, such as identifying many thousands of acres to establish industrial solar power facilities. The state has a renewable energy goal of 50 percent by 2035. That’s admirable, but we shouldn’t choose generating solar energy over growing food. We need to find balance. This vision aligns with the broader goal of ensuring the resilience and sustainability of Maryland’s agricultural sector.

Gone are the days when it’s agriculture versus the environment. Farmers are looking for solutions within the environment. Maryland Department of Agriculture is meeting with groups now that the agriculture industry probably would not have met with [years ago]—various conservation groups be it water, soil, environment—to figure out how to collaborate, move the needle in the right direction. We’re running out of time and it’s up to all of us to engage and affect change in support of our food system.

The Interview

As Maryland Secretary of Agriculture, Atticks has inherited many ongoing challenges in his first year. The responsibilities in this position are vast, including tasks one wouldn’t expect. Pumping your gas? Look for a Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA) sticker on the pump. Even veterinarians and pets fall under MDA jurisdiction. Who knew?

We were fortunate to have a chance to talk with Secretary Atticks directly for a summary of his very busy first year in office.

How do you feel you’ve acclimated to and fared on the job so far? Great! There are some top priorities. It’s so important that Maryland’s Ag is profitable and not just relevant. Our first hire is a person to help new businesses open.

Another priority is deer management. Deer are an incredible problem on farmland with wide open spaces. We are working with the Department of Natural Resources to figure out opportunities to better manage the deer, so we are not giving them three free meals a day.

We are attending four summits this year: The Rural Summit, The Maryland Deer Summit, The Chesapeake Bay Summit, and the Chesapeake Global Summit where we’ll emphasize the importance of using data, science, and collaboration to solve complex issues.

Successes? Getting out and meeting with the community has been a success. The first year, our leadership team went out to every county in the state. We held public meetings to hear the issues and concerns—what we were doing well and what we could be doing better. That really informed what we did last year. Not to rest on our laurels, we are doing it again on our 2024 tour of the state.

Another of our big accomplishments last year was supporting our Latino farmers who haven’t been connected with our agency in the past. We went on a trade mission to Guatemala and El Salvador. We are definitely looking into external markets for Maryland farmers to sell their products in Central America. I returned from a trip to India and there are incredible opportunities there for our producers and I will be hosting a virtual presentation about that trip. Pretty soon, we’re headed to Ireland, where we see market opportunities for our businesses. The goals are to get there, expose these markets to what we have to offer, and then introduce our producers directly to them.

Challenges? One set of challenges is that while our overall mission is promoting the industry, there are at least a hundred sub-industries. Some of those are crop production, fisheries and aquaculture, livestock production, forestry and wood products, textiles, apparel and leather products, et cetera.

Another primary challenge we face is the dual role of regulating industry and making sure our food and farm producers are producing in a way that’s safe for consumers and the Bay. 

Our top two challenges are our top missions. We spend a lot of time figuring out how we can do better with limited resources and staff in an increasingly diversifying industry.

What pleased you from this year’s General Assembly/legislation? There were two bills that we were pleased to support and be involved with. One is the Whole Watershed Act, which reallocates some of our resources and encourages our agency and soil conservation agencies to think differently about conserving the Bay. Basically, instead of implementing best management practices all over the state at the same time, with our Department of Environment and Department of Natural Resources, we will select any watershed—a tributary, a river, and along that waterway, we will center our best management practices. So, in a focused way, we throw everything we have at one waterway and record those improvements.

Another bill we are pleased with is the implementation of a new set of regulations around a product, that while helpful to farmers, has caused real consternation to neighbors. Animal byproducts, which can be used as soil amendment or fertilizer. When used sparingly…no problems. When used heavily, it smells. We were pleased with the results while working with the Farm Bureau, Chesapeake Bay Foundation, ShoreRivers, and some others to support that bill to craft regulations that made sense.

What are you advocating for with the General Assembly? We are really about awareness and making sure they understand the benefits of agriculture and the challenges that our producers face in trying to stay competitive in a state like Maryland with neighbors like Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

What I mean by that is, we have gotten to be quite a regulatory-minded state. To the point where our dairy producers have given up on being able to make consumer products. Instead, they sell their products to co-ops or other states. We should be producing that here. We have lost touch with how difficult our regulatory schemes are. 

My passion is my goal of streamlining those regs and that’s why our first hire was to help our dairy producers make cheese or ice cream, help our meat producers process in our state. It is important we produce it here! We need to work on incentives to bring it here. 

Are there any specific programs of the Department of Agriculture that you are especially proud of advocating for? Other than all of them?

I’ll pick two that, to me, are fascinating and critical. One is our Weights and Measures Division. Every commercial scale, every gas pump in the state, is regulated by our Weights and Measures Division. Next time you’re pumping gas, you’ll see a MDA sticker on the pump, which means we’ve inspected that gas pump to make sure it is working properly. The same with every grocery store scale, which we have calibrated to make sure you are getting what you pay for. This summer we started regulating electric vehicle charger stations. Up to this point, they have not been monitored. We hear from consumers that every third station is inoperable. 

Another program of pride is our Farmers Market Nutrition Program. We know that there is food insecurity across the country and in this state. That means we have individuals who cannot meet their nutritional needs and in certain cities. Farmers markets fill a critical void. They are a lifeline, bringing fresh food to food insecure areas. Our Farmers Market Nutrition Program actually helps folks who are on government nutrition programs. We add money to their account which then enables them to buy more local food.

What have you started/introduced on your watch so far? The things I am focusing on are not flashy new things. It’s making our department work better for the industry. We are working on regulatory efficiency to be more consumer proactive. Let’s clean things up, let’s make it work better, let’s talk about small business. We can’t get completely out of their way because part of the enforcement role is to be the referee. I’m a firm believer that businesses know how to be successful if we can truly just get out of their way!

What is Future Harvest?  As a nonprofit, Future Harvest works to improve agriculture in the Chesapeake region in order to support farmers, communities, and the environment. In order to create a sustainable foodshed—where food is produced in a way that supports the local food economy, strengthens farming, and safeguards the land, water, and air—they offer research, networking opportunities, and advocacy in addition to education. Learn more at futureharvest.org.

In agriculture, what is value-added? Penn State Extension explains value-added agriculture generally focuses on production or manufacturing processes, marketing, or services that increase the value of primary agricultural commodities. Perhaps by increasing appeal to the consumer and the consumer’s willingness to pay a premium over similar but undifferentiated products. An example would be milk turned into yogurt, ice cream, or butter.

What is agrivoltaics? The Department of Energy defines agrivoltaics as co-location, also known as dual-use solar, and is defined as agricultural production, such as crop or livestock production or pollinator habitats underneath solar panels or adjacent to solar panels.

How development rights support agriculture. Land preservation programs separate the “development rights” associated with zoning from the other property ownership rights. This allows landowners to sell their property’s development potential without selling the entire land, enabling them to retain ownership and continue agricultural operations.