The Army Corps of Engineers has told fourth-generation farmer and California Farm Bureau member John Duarte that he violated the Clean Water Act simply by plowing his land in rural California. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that farmers have no need to worry about their latest water rule because normal farming is exempt from regulation, but what’s happening to the Duarte family shows how the EPA and the Corps have gutted the exemption,  Duarte explained in a video produced by AFBF.
 
“The Corps and EPA aren’t trying to micromanage farmers,” Duarte said in a recent Newsline. “They’re trying to stop farmers from farming their fields. They’re trying to turn our farm land into habitat preservation. They’re simply trying to chase us off of our land.”