NGFA urges USDA to downsize CRP to protect jobs & growth
By Agri-Pulse Staff
© Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
Washington, April 13 – Warning that idling productive farmland “cuts off the economic multiplier inherent in crop, livestock and poultry production,” the National Grain and Feed Association is urging the Department of Agriculture to downsize and significantly reform the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to facilitate U.S. agriculture’s ability to achieve economic growth, create jobs and revitalize rural communities.
In a statement submitted in response to a USDA supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on future CRP policy options, the NGFA said it was “flawed, erroneous and short-sighted” to assess the CRP’s environmental benefits “in isolation and in a vacuum” without also considering the positive environmental benefits accrued through other USDA conservation programs, modern agricultural tillage practices and existing conservation requirements imposed under USDA farm programs. To read USDA’s 622-page EIS on future CRP policy options, go to: www.agri-pulse.com/uploaded/201002CRPEIS.pdf
Of the three policy alternatives contained in USDA’s draft environmental assessment, the NGFA favored the option that would reduce the size of the CRP to 24 million acres. But the NGFA encouraged USDA to allocate more than the 4 million acres called for under that policy option to targeted signups of the most environmentally sensitive land, such as through buffer strips and grassed waterways.
“We submit that reducing the size of the CRP – and reallocating some of its financial expenditures to conservation programs that benefit working farmlands, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), as well as targeted CRP enrollments of the most environmentally sensitive lands – would achieve greater conservation benefits than idling under the CRP vast tracts of tillable land that can be farmed in environmentally sustainable ways,” the NGFA said. The association noted that given the burgeoning federal budget deficit, USDA likely will be under increased congressional pressure to achieve greater environmental benefits with reduced spending under its multiple conservation programs.
The other two policy options offered in USDA’s draft environmental assessment both call for enrolling 32 million acres in the CRP – the maximum allowed by Congress under the 2008 farm law during the fiscal year 2010-12 period. Both of those alternatives, the NGFA said, take a “fundamentally flawed and harmful policy approach that views the 32-million-acre CRP statutory limit as a floor, rather than a ceiling.”
“The NGFA continues to believe a more focused CRP targeted on the most environmentally sensitive lands can be a positive contributor to the long-term success of U.S. agriculture while providing environmental benefits,” the NGFA statement continued. “But the current CRP that still represents, in acreage terms, the fourth largest U.S. “crop” – despite the 2008 farm law’s reduced ceiling to 32 million acres – is ill-suited to that objective.”
Concerning other aspects of the draft CRP environmental impact assessment, the NGFA:
The NGFA also reiterated the following additional reforms that it believes are “essential if the CRP is to avoid becoming a permanent albatross” that shackles U.S. agricultural growth and competitiveness, job creation and rural development:
“The NGFA strongly urges USDA to take this opportunity to bring about much-needed fundamental reforms of the CRP,” the statement concluded. “U.S. agriculture needs a CRP that is balanced and effective, recognizes the totality of conservation benefits accrued through a wide range of other USDA conservation programs (including those focused on working farmlands), takes into account the conservation practice requirements imposed under federal farm programs, and does not operate at cross-purposes with a healthy commercial U.S. agricultural sector that is so vital to rural development, job creation and economic growth.”
To return to the News Index page, click: www.agri-pulse.com
#30