As the ethanol boom (or crisis, depending on who you talk to) is pushing corn prices to new highs, more farmers are taking acreage out of the Conservation Reserve Program and planting crops again. That may not seem like the biggest deal in the world; in fact, it may seem like a good thing as staple crop prices are rising as demand grows. Increase the supply to meet the demand, right? But like most issues, there is always that proverbial other shoe dropping.
First, a little background on the Conservation Reserve Program. This program was born of the 1985 Farm Bill. Essentially, it is a lease program in which the US Federal Government via the US Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency pays landowners not to plant on the land. The land that is left unplanted is soil that is considered highly erodible and/or land that provides habitat for wildlife.
The CRP was for years considered quite the success story. Sure, in the beginning, it was a way to shore up crop prices and help out farmers, but instead it became a great way to restore and conserve open areas from sometimes abusive farming practices. Ten years after it started, many groups applauded the CRP and saw it as a way to help strengthen the Endangered Species Act.
The program's original purpose was to take fragile, highly erodible land out of production at a time when Government stocks of grain were soaring. But as farmers planted grass and trees and allowed natural vegetation to return, conservation benefits began to emerge. Millions of acres of wildlife habitat were regenerated and water quality was improved, benefiting countless species large and small, from freshwater mussels to big-game animals in the West. Improved water quality and wildlife habitat were subsequently included as goals of the program. -- New York Times from 1995
The Nebraska-based Lincoln Journal Star ran a story covering this very issue. This may not be a huge problem...yet. But as prices for corn, soybeans, wheat, and other cash crops continue to increase, more farmers are going to be tempted to convert some of those previously "leased" acres back to farmland.
[Tim] McCoy, agricultural program manager for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, pointed Wednesday to federal reports that show more than 90,000 acres coming out of the Conservation Reserve Program in the state at the end of the 2007 fiscal year and returning to increasingly profitable production. “Given the call for acres and commodity crops, we have serious concerns overall for that program,” he said. Officials from the Farm Service Agency office in Lincoln confirmed McCoy’s math and acknowledged the possibility of another exodus from a grass-covered expanse in 2009 and 2010. Between Sept. 30 and Nov. 30, federal records show, Nebraska’s active CRP inventory declined from about 1.34 million acres to about 1.25 million. That adds up to about a 6.5 percent loss in 60 days. -- Lincoln Journal StarIf you read the whole article from the Journal Star, there are other facets to the story. One farmer interviewed mentioned that the only acres he was thinking of pulling out of the CRP were not fragile or highly erodible. The same farmer also mentioned no-till farming as an answer to concerns over soil depletion.
But Game and Parks’ McCoy is mindful of other farmers who might not be so discriminating. He’s also worried the U.S. Department of Agriculture might do further damage to the CRP future by relaxing rules and allowing farmers to pull land out of the program before 10-year expiration dates without financial penalty.-- Lincoln Journal StarAnd if more acres are going to be coming out of the CRP, that means less acres for some species that have made new homes in the restored habitats. Ducks Unlimited is drawing attention to the impending loss of habitat in a recent press release.
With today’s high commodity prices and focus on crop-based biofuels, Ducks Unlimited and other conservation groups have been concerned that restored wildlife habitat would go back into crop production when CRP contracts expired in 2007. CRP offers producers payments through 10 to 15 year contracts to convert highly erodible cropland to grass. “The rental rates paid for enrolling in CRP simply do not compete with what producers can get today by renting out the land for cropping or by farming it themselves,” McLeod [Scott McLeod, Farm Bill specialist with DU’s Great Plains Regional Office] said. The US Fish and Wildlife Services credits CRP with producing more than 2 million ducks a year. This steady stream of lost habitat will mean significantly lower production of ducks that migrate through or winter in all of the contiguous 48 states and provide and an important part of the hunters’ bags in those states. DU’s director of conservation programs in the Prairie Pothole Region says conservation-minded people are concerned the country’s new energy policy will wipe out billions of federal dollars invested in natural resources. “Conservation is in for a long swim against a strong current when trying to fight the tide of land rolling out of CRP,” Jim Ringelman said. -- Ducks Unlimited
