This isn’t about cake, but let’s use cake as an example. When cakes are made from cake mixes, you get consistently edible cakes, but you never get the kind of cake that makes you stop chewing, forget about your birthday presents and close your eyes so you can focus on the flavor. For that kind of cake, you need bakers like my sister and brother-in-law who will spend half a day on a death-by-chocolate masterpiece with chocolate mousse filling and a fondant overlay. Throughout the process they make adjustments to the recipe to correct for variables like room temperature and humidity.

I don’t mean to imply that farming is a piece of cake, but there are some similarities to cake baking. Farmers also have to adapt to variations in temperature and moisture levels, while also dealing with differences in soil types, terrain, drainage and fertility. Unfortunately, some politicians and activists outside agriculture are eager to tell farmers what production practices they should be using without considering the endless variables. They seem to have the impression that writing a recipe for farming will keep nutrients out of Lake Erie and other bodies of water. 

No matter how well-intentioned, overly strict regulation of agriculture is likely to do more harm than good. Consider farmers in Ukraine, who have been constrained by inflexible management plans that came into use during the Soviet era. Farm managers would start each year with a schedule for farm operations, such as planting, fertilizing and spraying. They had no flexibility to adjust for local conditions, so they might end up planting in mud just because it was the scheduled day. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Regulations in Ohio are nowhere near that oppressive, but government insistence on particular production practices can become counterproductive. That’s why Gov. Kasich’s recent executive order on distressed watersheds was so worrisome to farmers.

Issuing orders without seeking input from the farm community is not the best way for the governor to convince farmers to step up their efforts to protect water quality. The Ohio Soil and Water Conservation Commission seems to understand this and has assigned a subcommittee to review the governor’s executive order before enacting it. The Ohio General Assembly is also working toward solutions by approving funding for clean lake initiatives.

To do their part in cleaning up the lake, farmers don’t need more restrictions; they need more data. Ohio farm organizations have already joined with farmers and researchers to develop science-based answers to water quality questions. Although the research is ongoing, it’s clear that farmers will need the flexibility to use adaptive management so they can adjust their production practices based on local conditions.

There is no simple, pre-packaged mix of practices that will work on every farm, every year to protect water quality while also maintaining farm productivity. Farmers must take the initiative to find practices that work on their farms and, like master bakers, they must adapt as conditions change. That’s the only way we can have our lake while eating, too.