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USDA Rule Change May Lead To Crops on Conserved Land
WASHINGTON - Under pressure from farmers, livestock producers and soaring food prices, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is weighing a policy change that could lead to the plowing of millions of acres of land that had been set aside for conservation.
At issue is the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), under which the government has paid farmers to stop growing row crops, such as corn and soybeans, on 34 million acres across the country. Designed in the mid-1980s to hold down production and bolster commodity prices, the $1.8 billion-a-year program has turned into a major boon for conservation, with much of the acreage planted with perennial grasses or trees, or restored to wetlands.
But the ethanol boom, widespread flooding and high prices for feed crops have changed the equation. Livestock producers have been howling about the high price of animal feed. Pork producers say they are losing $30 per pig.
"We need more corn. That's all there is to it," said Dave Warner, spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, one of many agricultural trade groups pressuring Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer to change the rules of the conservation program to release land into production.
Industry observers expect Schafer to announce his decision imminently. Whatever he decides is certain to be controversial. Environmentalists are decrying the idea of renewing farming on the land, saying that the program represents a huge taxpayer investment in conservation and that expanded cultivation might exacerbate future flooding.
"He's got to choose between agriculturalists and environmentalists, and I'm not sure he wants to make that choice," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said. Grassley has met with Schafer and urged him to let farmers out of their CRP contracts without paying a penalty, while also, as he put it in a letter to Schafer, protecting "the most environmentally sensitive lands."
Environmentalists argue that the short-term gains from additional row crops would be outweighed by long-term environmental damage.
"The reason it's in the Conservation Reserve Program, it's environmentally fragile, it's highly erodible land, and we've invested a hell of a lot of money in getting cover on this land and putting it to bed, basically," said Ralph Heimlich, an environmental consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund and a former deputy director at the USDA.
This week, Schafer issued an order allowing livestock to graze on millions of acres of recently flooded CRP land in the Midwest. The emergency action didn't satisfy the food industry. Robb MacKie, president of the American Bakers Association, sent a letter to Schafer on Tuesday saying the emergency grazing "simply is not enough to have any beneficial impact on high food prices."
CRP lands are also the subject of a legal dispute playing out in federal court in Seattle. This week, a federal judge there sided with the National Wildlife Federation and issued a temporary restraining order against the USDA to stop an earlier initiative that allowed limited grazing and haying on CRP lands. The merits of the case will be heard next week.
The conservation program, started in 1985, pays farmers "rent" to leave cropland fallow. Some of the land is used as a buffer along streams and rivers. A typical contract under the program lasts for 10 or 15 years. Anyone wishing to opt out has to pay a penalty and refund all the rent money to the government. But if Schafer waives the penalties, millions of acres could be freed up to be plowed again.
In September, contracts will expire on 1.2 million acres, and in the next four years the numbers jump: 3.9 million acres under contracts that expire in 2009, 4.5 million in 2010, 4.4 million in 2011 and 5.6 million in 2012.
The financial calculations have changed for many farmers, thanks to worldwide food shortages and the massive, government-subsidized effort to convert a sizable chunk of the nation's corn crop to ethanol production. Last year about a quarter of the corn crop was used for ethanol. Congress has mandated that fuel refiners ramp up their use of ethanol this year to 9 billion gallons, up from less than 7 billion last year.
"The release of crop acres is a short-term solution to a corn shortage caused by the federal ethanol mandate and bad weather conditions," said Dave Ray, spokesman for the American Meat Institute. "In the short term, we need to produce more corn to feed ourselves and consumers abroad. In the long term, we need to revisit the notion that burning food as fuel is a good idea."
This week, 15 environmental organizations sent a letter to Schafer declaring that a penalty-free opt-out of CRP contracts would "deliver a devastating blow to the nation's soil, water, and wildlife habitat, and significantly increase global warming."
The organizations said the conservation lands are too marginal for crop production to have a significant impact on the supplies and prices of food crops.
"This is taxpayer money. We've invested in that land for a reason," said Julie Sibbing, a senior program manager for the National Wildlife Federation. "If you don't keep it in that for at least 10 years, we don't get our value out of it."
Scott Stephens, a spokesman for Ducks Unlimited, said the Conservation Reserve Program has had huge benefits for wildlife and water quality. If farmers convert grassland back to crops, he said, "that's a death spiral for wildlife populations."
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
8 Comments so far
Show All"burning food as fuel is a bad idea" Our current system burns about 10 calories of fuel for about every 1 calorie of food produced. Farming as a business seems to be on the way out. Maybe we will all end up farming (gardening) for food in little plots named "victory gardens" in honor of the good old days when the country worked together to defeat the axis (WWII) Today 1 farmer feeds around 50 people. This will probably change in the near future.
More people, less ducks.
From the White House tapes, recorded in an "undisclosed location."
"Well Dick, it looks like we're not going to be able to rule the world much longer. What should we do?"
"Well, George, I think we should do as the ancient Romans did, using modern technology and, of course, showing a profit. The Romans would tear down the cities of the enemy and sow the ground with salt so nothing could grow. Salt's pretty obsolete, but we have pesticides, and nuclear weaponry which will do the same thing. Let's just loose the Dogs of War and nuke the planet. If we can't have it, nobody can! If they think Turd Blossom has contempt for them, watch this!"
"It's a deal, Dick. Order Congress and the Pentagon to make it so. Neither will argue with us."
Where does the madness end? "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," but all those cars weren't parked all the time - gotta grow fuel somewhere! Makes a hell of a lot of sense to me! First we degrade the country until it is as crappy as China is now, then ...
The left wing just continues to flip flop flip flop flip flop flip flop.
Just a month ago the left wing was all a twitter about the evil farm bill, but now the left supports money for conservation. wtf?
More than 75% of the new farm bill money goes for feeding the poor and for conservation (CRP). So let me get this straight, the left supports more than 75% of the new farm bill? So what was all the fuss about then? Subsidies? Those are subsidies which farmers, big or small, won't see most of anyway due to high crop prices way above LDP levels (goolge LDP..I am sick of explaining everything).
And the left calls Obama a flip flopper? hilarious.
"the left was against the farm bill before it was for it and against it at the same time"
www.CommonFlipFlopDreams.org/clueless.
I have mixed feelings about this. We do have to eat but we have to preserve biodiversity too. If we're going to do biomass we need to at least do it right. No ethanol, we could use hemp or this switchgrass stuff and design plug in hybrids that use an engine specifically designed to burn biodiesel to optimize efficiency. This is where I differ with Pickens' plan. I like his idea with wind but while natural gas is cleanER, it is still a nonrenewable fossil fuel and methane is a greenhouse gas. We need to go ahead and take a different direction with our cars now instead of switching to something now and then something else in a few decades.
Also we have too many huge lawns. Why not convert them to habitat restoration? I like habitat conservation land for aesthetics, some others like big lawns for aesthetics, why should mine take a back seat? Conservation land emits a lot less co2 per year(perhaps 1 burn vs multiple mowings), and cost very little to maintain. The biggest problem is controlling invasive species other than that it maintains itself.
You don't need government subsidies if people realize the economic benefit of land that takes care of itself and get over their love with the aesthetics of the lawn.
First we burn all the fossil fuel and then we burn food and nature. All for a car technology with a 20% efficiency.
Technologically we could reduce energy consumption by a factor of 10, but instead of focusing on increased energy efficiency, it all seems to be again about the next product that can be sold in addition to what's lready being sold. Before food is used as fuel and before the Arctic is handed over to the oil companies we should just use the already available technology and reduce energy consumption (without losing any of the comfort). This of course would mean tough legislation. companies just want to make profit and if they can make profit through a dying planet, then they will go for it. Hopefully Obama understands that the next technological revolution (and economic boom) will be to greatly increase energy efficiency.
"He's got to choose between agriculturalists and environmentalists, and I'm not sure he wants to make that choice," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said. Grassley has met with Schafer and urged him to let farmers out of their CRP contracts without paying a penalty, while also, as he put it in a letter to Schafer, protecting "the most environmentally sensitive lands."
I see. It is the people he has to choose between, and of course you can't let the environment get in the way of people's rights.
This may be good democracy, but it is damn bad public policy.
What is remarkable is that after seeing the emergence of all these dire environmental problems that have resulted from failed public policy, there is still no questioning of "necessity of economic growth", people first, income inequity, population explosion, and the religion of consumption.
I just don't that there is any general appreciation of ecology whatsoever and the necessity that we either learn to fit in with what is going on or find ourselves being ushered through those doors with extinction written on them.
For us, environmentalism is the metaphorical equivalent of keeping our front yards neat and clean.