Perhaps it was just one of those misunderstandings that happen all the time in large bureaucracies or perhaps the U.S. Department of Agriculture was spending too much time in the fields and got a little sunstruck. Whichever, its refusal to allow Maine to send hay from the northern half of the state to help the southern portion seems plain silly.

Though it has been hot and dry all over Maine this summer, the south has had it worst and, as a result, found itself short of hay. Gov. Angus King made the sensible proposal of cutting hay on land set aside under the federal Conservation Reserve Program in the north and west and sending it south. Sensible, that is, to the average person; not so sensible to Agriculture officials.

Fortunately, since the governor’s proposal was made, farmers with hay to spare from a second cutting have made up some, although not all, of the shortage. (Those with surplus hay who want to help can contact the Maine National Guard or the Maine Department of Agriculture). Also, the governor has asked Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman to declare 14 of Maine’s counties disaster areas, making them eligible for low-interest loans and commodity payments. The crisis may be receding, but what galls is the way the feds turned down Maine’s haying proposal.

The state could not hay the CRP acreage up north because, according to a letter from the USDA, “we have no authority to allow emergency haying of CRP acreage in an area for which no emergency weather conditions exist.” That is, if the weather were so bad that hay could not grow on the land, then you could cut it. But if the weather allows hay to grow, then you cannot cut it.

Not content with that alley-oop logic, the letter continues: “There is also concern that the same drought conditions which retard forage and pasture production for livestock, also retard the regrowth of the mowed and grazed CRP cover.” So, having concluded that Maine could not cut the hay because no drought conditions existed on the land in question, the USDA further rejected the proposal because of drought conditions on the land.

A final insult: Many persons are not sympathetic to the release of the CRP acreage for what they view as `double dipping,’ that is, producers entering into contracts and being paid for removing land from production and then in a time of forage shortage, being allowed to make commercial use of the forage on CRP acreage. A good point if it were true, but nobody in Maine was talking about selling the hay. There was a shortage, fellow Mainers were going to try to help out, not help themselves.

Probably to USDA officials, the letter rejecting this proposal makes perfect sense and they see nothing contradictory in their explanation. Probably they should remember to wear a hat when out in the sun.