Cut Conservation Acres?

[blake]

Ag leader asks: Cut conservation acres?

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</st1:City>Washington, <st1:State w:st="on">D.C.</st1:State>The next chairman of the House Agriculture Committee thinks the government should consider releasing idled land for crop production if the acreage is needed to stabilize supplies of corn and other commodities.

Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., who will take over the committee next month, said the next farm bill, due in 2012, could include a provision allowing the Agriculture Department to reduce the size of the Conservation Reserve Program in case of crop shortages.
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That would give the USDA the "flexibility to allow at least enough acres to come out to maintain some kind of equilibrium" between the competing uses of corn for livestock feed, food and biofuels, he said in an interview with The Des Moines Register.

About 30.7 million acres of environmentally sensitive former cropland is currently idled in the conservation program, including 1.7 million acres in <ST1<st1:State w:st="on">Iowa</st1:State></ST1lace. The acreage is planted to grass or trees, and landowners receive an annual payment that averages $55 an acre nationwide and $127 an acre.
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Converting some of that acreage to food production would be better than "encouraging our competitors around the world to plow up more rain forest" or grasslands to grow crops, Lucas said.

Land could be added back to the program when the acreage isn't needed, he said.

The proposal reflects concerns in the food and livestock industries that the increased use of corn for ethanol is driving up the cost of producing meat, milk and other products.
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Environmental groups and hunting interests have fought efforts to shrink the conservation program in the past because the acreage provides wildlife habitat and prevents soil from eroding. That protects streams, ponds and lakes from runoff of farm chemicals.

"We are concerned that we don't sacrifice CRP to ethanol," said Don Carr, a spokesman for the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization.

"This is pretty clear evidence, if any one needed it, that corn ethanol has an impact on land use and the cost of food," he said of Lucas' idea.
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Lucas is considering hearings on the adequacy of <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S. </st1:country-region>acreage and crop supplies. If a shortage of cropland "causes our competitors to expand their production, that's not in our long-term best interest," he said.

Lucas said many farm programs could face cuts in the next farm bill, including the $5 billion in fixed, annual payments that go to <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region> grain and cotton growers.

"Let's face it. Even direct payments along with everything else is going to be on the table," he said.
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Farm programs faced budget problems even before Republicans won control of the House in the November election with pledges to address the federal deficit. Dozens of farm programs, including an agricultural disaster plan, have no funding after 2012 and could die unless lawmakers pare other parts of the farm bill.

The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation has proposed shifting money from direct payments into a program that would protect farmers against revenue losses. Critics say the direct payments have inflated land values and are difficult to defend politically because growers and landowners receive the subsidies even when farm income is soaring, as it has in recent years. <st1:State w:st="on"><ST1Iowa</st1:State> receives about $500 million in direct payments annually, about 10 percent of the national total.
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Lucas is reluctant to shift money away from direct payments into programs that might be more difficult to defend under international trade rules. The direct payments are considered to have less effect on production and prices than other types of subsidies.

He said direct payments aren't the only type of government assistance that figures into land values.

Lucas said the committee won't start work on the new bill until 2012, in part because he thinks the budget situation will be better then.
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In the meantime, the committee will conduct oversight hearings next year on several Obama administration initiatives that have drawn concern from agribusiness interests, he said. Those issues include possible new regulations on rural dust and proposed livestock marketing regulations.









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[DannyBoy]

There are about a million things I could say in response to this... Geesh. Sorry, but plowing up valuable habitat is not the answer for growing more corn. And we wouldn't have a food shortage if corn wasn't inefficiently used for ethanol production. There are far, far, far better alternatives. Maybe it's time to start taking advantage of those alternatives, which have already been explored. Irritating.

 

[Tim Hull]

Ethanol is a subsidy and so is the CRP program. If they want to put it in CRP, they should do it on their own and not by using tax money. The CRP program also inflates the price of land.

 

[dbltree]

Ethanol is a subsidy and so is the CRP program. If they want to put it in CRP, they should do it on their own and not by using tax money. The CRP program also inflates the price of land.

The Conservation Reserve program is voluntary and it is meant to protect highly erodible lands from severe erosion caused by farming them. Its not a subsidy but a means of curb what otherwise is an environmental disaster.

Not only does precious top soil wash down to the Gulf of Mexico but along with it thousands of tons of nitrates and herbicides that have created hundreds of thousands of aces of "waste land" in the Gulf.

Money spent to keep protect our land and resources is one of the wisest investments tax payers in this country can make and our leaders know this. Most of the land in CRP is so hilly it could only be farmed within a 5 year rotation of corn, soybeans, and 3 years in hay or it would be ineligible for to be certified.

CRP has little effect on the price of land...crop prices are responsible for the rise and fall of land values and that is relevant to demand and availability. Low crop prices because too much land is in production is not good for farmers and in the end our economy. Those who work for John Deere for instance know full well how disastrous low crop prices can be.

There are then many many positive attributes to the CRP program way beyond wildlife habitat and I am so thankful we have this important option to protect our land and natural resources...:way:

 

[DannyBoy]

VERY well said, dbltree.

 

[Daver]

The Conservation Reserve program is voluntary and it is meant to protect highly erodible lands from severe erosion caused by farming them. Its not a subsidy but a means of curb what otherwise is an environmental disaster.

Not only does precious top soil wash down to the Gulf of Mexico but along with it thousands of tons of nitrates and herbicides that have created hundreds of thousands of aces of "waste land" in the Gulf.

Money spent to keep protect our land and resources is one of the wisest investments tax payers in this country can make and our leaders know this. Most of the land in CRP is so hilly it could only be farmed within a 5 year rotation of corn, soybeans, and 3 years in hay or it would be ineligible for to be certified.

CRP has little effect on the price of land...crop prices are responsible for the rise and fall of land values and that is relevant to demand and availability. Low crop prices because too much land is in production is not good for farmers and in the end our economy. Those who work for John Deere for instance know full well how disastrous low crop prices can be.

There are then many many positive attributes to the CRP program way beyond wildlife habitat and I am so thankful we have this important option to protect our land and natural resources...:way:

My feelings on this are a bit different...it is true that ground in the CRP program is less suited to row cropping and there are clear benefits to some of the ground being idled. But the CRP program(s) are certainly not the only way to achieve this IMO.

Who's to say that farm land could not be "zoned" based upon it's erosion potential and all land that is too erodible is simply not eligible to till. (Note - I am a "small government" type and I realize that enacting something along these lines may fly in the face of that and would likely mean more government. But then again, we have plenty of "gubmint" associated now with administering the CRP program too, so maybe things could be offset.)

At any rate, I agree with the notion of keeping chemicals and topsoil from going downsteam too, but I also think there are other ways to achieve that. For instance, if you look at residential development areas there are "socks" placed every so often to prevent the bare, construction ground from being washed down the storm sewer or nearby creek. This has not always been the case though and the expense of that soil erosion protection is on the developer, not a government program.

Who's to say that farmers should be not be held responsible for what washes off their land? Yes, there would be a cost of doing business associated with that, but then people would select/deselect ground to plant based upon the cost/benefit of protecting the ground from erosion.

I think CRP actually does influence the price of land, along with many other factors too though. My farm, while it does have tillable ground, is not a high soil quality, "flat" farm. I have some of my ground in the CRP program and did include the annual CRP payment in arriving at the price per acre that I was willing to pay. Without the CRP payment, I would not have paid as much as I did.

I personally benefit from the CRP program...but I am even more concerned that our federal government spends too much money every year and somehow, some way, we are going to have to change our spending habits at multiple levels of government or we are going to have a bankrupt government on our hands.

 

[J_Barton]

but I am even more concerned that our federal government spends too much money every year and somehow, some way, we are going to have to change our spending habits at multiple levels of government or we are going to have a bankrupt government on our hands.

Of the thousands of things our government spends (and wastes) our tax dollars on.... conservation is in the top five items really worth keeping. It ranks up there with education and public safety. We should be cutting the earmarks and putting more into CRP type programs- in all 50 states.