Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier, IA
05-02-07
Farm bill proposals more than double conservation spending
By EMRE PEKER, Courier Medill News Service
WASHINGTON --- Senators turned their attention Tuesday to what is becoming
the juiciest part of the farm bill: the conservation title.
If current proposals become law, the 2007 bill would provide farmers with more
money than ever, giving them added incentives to preserve natural resources,
pursue environment-friendly practices and protect wildlife.
"We need to do more in conservation," Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman
Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said. "There is a national need ... there is a national payoff
for it."
But lawmakers in both chambers of Congress, feeling financial constraints, are
reluctant to push for a big increase in conservation spending despite strong
support from farmers and the USDA.
The more than 70-year-old conservation clause was written to preserve farmland,
but in recent years has also addressed other environmental issues. The
initiatives range from protecting topsoil, to keeping lakes and rivers clean, to
maintaining wildlife habitat.
Until the 2002 farm bill, talk of conservation was mostly overshadowed by
haggling over the commodity programs, which set subsidies by product. This
year, lawmakers are expected to take an even deeper look at conservation
programs.
"We got a lot of competing demands in this farm bill," Harkin said. "And our
baseline is not good compared to what it was five years ago."
Even so, the proposals to increase spending are plentiful. Rep. Ron Kind, DWis., introduced a bill with 100 cosponsors that would boost conservation funding
from $2.7 billion to more than $5 billion --- a companion bill in the Senate has six
sponsors. A more ambitious plan from the USDA suggested a hike to nearly $9
billion.
Iowa received close to $250 million in conservation money in 2005, according to
a study by the Center of Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State
University. The bulk of federal dollars, $195.9 million, went to the Conservation
Reserve Program, which finances farmers who carry out long-term measures
such as planting trees or grass on eligible land.
The 2002 farm bill wrote in huge gains for conservation, but the money was
taken out of the agriculture outlays to pay for disaster relief, not related to
farming, Harkin said. "The damage (to conservation financing) has been great
and it's going to be tough to recover from," he said.
Testimony from witnesses Tuesday reaffirmed the gains from investments in
conservation.
"Conservation programs are crucial to the survival of agriculture," said Sen.
Robert Menendez, D-N.J. It allows "farmers to thrive while giving them the tool
they need to meet our environmental and energy challenges."
John Hansen of Nebraska, who represented the National Farmers Union, said,
"The 2002 Farm Bill dramatically expanded the size and scope of the
conservation programs.
"If we want good resource management we need good resource managers,"
Hansen continued, "who have a conservation ethic (and) believe in leaving our
national resources in better condition than we found them for future generations."
Witnesses said the conservation title can be improved by consolidating and
streamlining overlapping programs. They also said bureaucracy is blocking
access to some of the programs.
Committee members were sympathetic to the witnesses, but put the burden of
pushing the reforms on the farmers.
"For those who are interested in conservation, you're going to have to battle for
every penny," Harkin said, "and build the constituencies that are necessary for
this."
Contact Emre Peker at Medill News Service at emailemre@gmail.com