In response to food supply problems related to recent weather disasters, ethanol demand, and higher costs, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) may allow farmers to opt out of conservation deals that paid them to keep erosion-sensitive land uncultivated.
We're talking millions of acres of grasslands and other environmentally fragile regions protected under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and most of it's in the Great Plains. Started in 1985, here's how the CRP works:
- The government pays farmers not to plow or allow grazing on certain pieces of land, like along rivers and streams.
- The contract between the farmer and the CRP lasts 10 or 15 years, and when the contract ends, so do the land-use restrictions.
- Farmers who opt out of the contract early must pay a penalty and pay back all the money from the program.
Right now, Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer is considering eliminating those penalties for opting out, a move that would allow farmers to put all that sensitive land back into production. Some of it, in fact, has recently been approved for haying and grazing, although a federal judge recently denied the widespread usage the USDA sought.
But turning these wetlands and grasslands into cropland could prove disastrous for the environment and whether the worst scenarios prove true or not, the move would equal a huge step backwards for American conservation. According to Neil Shader of Ducks Unlimited,
"[T]he nation's conservation reserves prevent more than 400 million tons worth of erosion every year. They also put huge numbers of birds into the skies above the country's so-called "prairie pothole" region, which includes parts of North Dakota, Minnesota, Montana and Iowa.
Those reserves add 2.2 million ducks to the fall migrations every year, Shader says.
"That's equal to the number of ducks that are harvested each fall from Maine to Florida, all along the Atlantic coast," he says." - NPR
And ducks are just one example. Possible damage to sage grouse, prairie ecosystems, and natural bodies of water all concern environmentalists, too. Beyond the bleak implications for native plants and wildlife, the controversy also stirs up some disturbing financial questions:
"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." - Washington Post
Most opponents of plowing and planting CRP lands do recognize the plight of farmers in the face of rising feed costs. They just think ravaging the CRP is the wrong answer to the dilemma. Tom Philpott at Grist points to another solution:
"Of course, if policymakers really wanted to bring down the price of food, they'd leave the CRP alone and instead take aim at the biofuel mandates that are currently drawing a quarter of the corn crop into ethanol factories. (One World Bank economist reckons that mandates and other government biofuel supports are responsible for as much as 75 percent of the recent run-up in food prices.)" - Grist
A recent New York Times editorial also favors policy measures like eliminating ethanol tax breaks over opening up CRP lands.
An intriguing column over at New West examines the CRP controversy in even greater detail, as author George Wuerthner advocates for a more permanent conservation program in the first place rather than temporary contracts:
"At the end of the 10 or 15-year contract, any farmer/rancher can decide to start plowing their CRP acreage, completely negating any conservation value that may have been achieved.
Indeed, even without termination of the contracts, the vast majority of CRP lands are at some point during the contract period released for livestock grazing, haying, and even farming, due to "emergencies" like drought, floods, and other excuses used to remove CRP lands from the limited protections offered by the program." - New West
Wuerthner advocates, instead, outright purchase of environmentally sensitive land, a move that ensures protection from agricultural use and opens up more green spaces for the public. In fact, he argues, there is a successful historical precedent for this kind of conservation:
"A similar acquisition of marginal farmland in the 1930s helped to create our national grassland system. Perhaps the recent Ag efforts to terminate the CRP contracts can be an opportunity-a chance to implement a real conservation reserve program that buys, rather than rents, highly erodible lands, provides good wildlife habitat, and public access." - New West
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