Des Moines Register
08-01-07
Make farm bill more about future
Boost energy production, but protect soil.
The transformation of agriculture into a producer of fuel as well as food and fiber
demands visionary American farm policy to position farmers and the nation to
thrive in a new era.
Unfortunately, the farm bill passed by the U.S. House last week, a five-year
blueprint for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's spending and priorities, reads
too much like the farm bill of 2002. It breaks too little new ground in directing
policy and dollars to embrace a new future for agriculture.
It's up to the Senate, under the leadership of Iowa's Tom Harkin, chair of the
Senate Agriculture Committee, to craft a better bill. It must unleash the
capabilities of American agriculture to lead this energy revolution, while also
better protecting the nation's soil and water as farmers shift their operations to
produce crops for biofuels.
The House bill does a good job on the first count, but a poor job on the second.
It recognizes that ethanol made from corn grain can replace only a fraction of the
nation's gasoline use - less than 4 percent currently. But by also making ethanol
from cellulose, the fibrous material in plant stems, leaves and wood, displacing
up to 30 percent of gasoline use could be possible, according to some estimates.
The bill provides incentives for investors and farmers to develop the next
generation of energy crops. The secretary of agriculture would designate 10
innovation centers around the country, which could include land-grant
universities such as Iowa State. Farmers in selected project areas nearby
would receive extra payments for taking the risk to plant, grow, harvest, store and
transport entirely new types of crops, such as perennial grasses, or to handle
existing crops in different ways, such as harvesting corn cobs and stalks. A
similar program would provide incentives to forest owners to experiment with
fast-growing tree varieties.
The House bill also would provide loan guarantees for constructing biorefineries.
Today, oil refineries produce not only motor fuel but also chemicals used to make
everything from plastics to fabrics. Biorefineries would make fuel and a host of
other products from plant material, producing energy from a renewable source
and reducing global-warming emissions.
In a conference call Tuesday, Harkin praised the energy provisions of the House
bill, but said he hoped to craft a Senate bill that would be more aggressive in
providing incentives to grow energy crops. For example, farmers who grow such
crops should be eligible for certain conservation payments, he said.
Where the House bill falls disastrously short is in failing to beef up conservation
incentives on working lands, which will be crucial as farmers step up planting to
produce energy crops. Higher crop prices could prompt farmers to plant on
marginal lands or abandon soil-replenishing crop rotations. Duane Sand, a
consultant to the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, estimates that 20 pounds of
soil washes away for every gallon of ethanol produced. Removal of cornstalks
also could harm soil quality.
If done right, however, planting perennial crops to produce cellulosic ethanol
could lessen soil erosion and improve water quality and wildlife habitat.
The House bill did extend the popular Conservation Reserve Program, which
pays farmers to idle highly erodible land. But it gutted the Conservation Security
Program, which pays farmers for stewardship practices on land in production.
Harkin can be counted on to fight for funding the Conservation Security Program,
which he created. The problem is money.
Part of it should come from placing reasonable limits on farm subsidies to ultrawealthy farmers and from eliminating abuses such as payments on land that's no
longer farmed or made in the names of people who have died. And part needs to
come from other cuts in the federal budget.
A visionary farm bill will further the national priority of energy security, but also
protect the soil and water that grow the crops fueling a biobased economy.