I'm old enough to remember when....He sounds like a rep from CBF. Its "war" against farming was the reason I very publicly resigned from the group several years ago. They still send me their stuff although they don't ask for money any longer.
The MD Ag Extension folks heavily promoted "no till" ag crops, corn especially, over traditional plow/disk/drill methods. To reduce run-off and soil erosion from farms, they said. Grants were made available to help us purchase the huge machines..Terragators..that could spread the human waste sludge that was made available for free from WSSC and other sewage treatment facilities. And away we went.
No-till corn required massive application of high-nitrogen liquid fertilizer, heavily laced with Paraquat, to kill the "weed cover", as well as other chemicals that inhibited future weed germination, prior to drilling the seed corn. Hell, we and other farms went together and purchased our own tractor-trailer tanker just to haul the stuff, we used so much of it. I've had so much Paraquat CL and other nasty chemicals drench me while driving an open tractor pulling a spray tank on a hot summer day with no shirt on, I'm amazed I don't have a third foot growing out of the middle of my forehead.
Fast forward about 20 years...."oh crap!"..whaddya know......the runoff from that farming method was, along with SMC79s liberal DC friends yard maintenance spraying, what "killed the bay".
The trapping/sequestration of farm nutrient runoff today is so strictly regulated that its one of several reasons there are so few farms left in MD.