We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Privacy Terms and Cookie Policy
Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Saturday, November 23, 2024
If you’d like to see changes in conservation practice standards, now’s your chance. Until April 25, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is accepting comments as part of its review of conservation practice standards mandated by the 2018 Farm Bill and designed to improve the standards and increase flexibility.
The Environmental Quality Incentives Program will take on a broader role, with more dollars and longer contracts, as it emerges under 2018 farm bill provisions.
Advocates for dairy farmers pressed USDA officials at a farm bill listening session to move quickly to get payments to financially strapped producers, while other groups urged the department to put a priority on removing barriers to cover crops and scheduling signups for major conservation programs.
The Conservation Stewardship Program has survived and grown despite repeated attacks by critics in Congress and in some administrations, but one of those critics, Texas GOP Rep. Mike Conaway, believes he has finally succeeded in pushing CSP toward the door.
Georgia farmers and ranchers who suffered damage to working lands and lost livestock because of Hurricane Michael can sign up for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program through USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
When House and Senate negotiators sit down in coming days to start writing the final version of a new farm bill, they will find that many of their sharpest differences will be over how far they should reshape and fund conservation programs.
Republicans expect to advance a farm bill in the House Agriculture Committee on Wednesday despite Democratic anger over its reforms to food stamps, but the legislation also would make significant changes in policy and funding across many other sections, including conservation, rural development and horticulture.
House Republicans prepare to force their new farm bill through the Agriculture Committee this week in what is likely to be a bitter but potentially brief debate, setting up a likely showdown on the House floor in May.
House Agriculture Chairman Mike Conaway kicked off a battle over the next farm bill by releasing draft legislation that offers producers improvements to major commodity programs at minimal cost, while overhauling conservation policy and making sweeping reforms to nutrition assistance.
A new bipartisan Senate proposal to reform USDA’s three largest conservation programs departs sharply from what is expected to be in the House farm bill while putting an emphasis on protecting water quality.
