Since the mid-1980s, the U.S. government, trying to reduce the environmental fallout from large-scale farming, has been paying farmers to set aside substandard land for conservation. The results have been overwhelmingly positive: Soil erosion has been reduced, chemical and fertilizer runoff has eased, and habitats for game birds and endangered species have been created and enlarged. The pushback to climate change has been equally noteworthy: In 2007, the lands trapped 50 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, making the Conservation Reserve Program the most effective government-funded defense against greenhouse gases on private lands.
"We use this program for everything," says John Johnson, a U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy administrator. "We protect New York City's drinking water with it. We preserve groundwater with it. We protect the salmon habitat in the Pacific Northwest with it. It's a wonderful program."
But dark clouds are forming on the protected fields. Historically, farmers have been eager to participate in the program, and many still are. But as prices for crops have soared, a growing number of farmers have opted to put conservation land back into production. The trend is expected to accelerate, worrying those who caution that years of steady environmental progress could be halted or even reversed.
Congress, meanwhile, could further strain the program as it races to complete massive farm legislation this month. Conservation programs, according to those familiar with negotiations, are at risk of being slashed as negotiators try to keep funding levels under control.
So far, the shift in land use has been modest but significant. In September 2007, according to the USDA, 36.8 million acres were enrolled in the program; last month, 34.5 million acres remained. In other words, in a relatively short time, more than 2 million acres came out. The decline has been particularly acute in states like Iowa and the Dakotas that grow a lot of corn and soybeans. Prices of those crops have more than doubled since last year.
Razing rain forests. By 2010, more than 4.5 million acres of conservation area will be put into farming, according to the USDA. And within the next five to 10 years, nearly a quarter of all CRP land could be removed. "Right now, given the current economic climate, many farmers are trying to find every available piece of ground to put into production," says Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition. The shift is being echoed abroad where farmers from Brazil to Indonesia are razing rain forests and wilderness to grow crops to feed the global demand for biofuels.
For now, a majority of farmers are choosing to stay in the program. Some of the land in conservation is marginal, meaning that it's hard to grow crops on it, at least in a way that makes sense economically. Returning land to production also requires labor and investment in expensive fuel and fertilizer. "If you are getting good rental rates and no production costs, other than having someone mow it every few years," Hoefner says, "it's not a bad deal."
Depending on the outcome of the farm bill, Congress could either sweeten or dull the pot. Farmers who are now in the program receive, on average, about $49 per acre under 10-to-15-year contracts. The average enrolled farm in 2008 will receive $4,139. To compete with the market, some say, those prices are too low. Both the House and Senate versions of the farm bill would increase conservation funding by close to $5 billion.
Whittling down. But recent discussions suggest that those increases might be scaled back or even cut. Other reductions are expected as well. In 2002, Congress boosted the number of acres it would support to 39.2 million. Now the program will very likely be whittled down to 32 million. If farmers are already opting out, the thinking goes, why not give it less funding?
There is also talk, much to the consternation of environmentalists, about bundling energy policy with conservation efforts. Those worries were amplified earlier last month when Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, speaking in Las Vegas, said, "I'd like to see all the [conservation reserve] acres out there growing switch grass"--a warm-season prairie grass that can be used to make ethanol.
Environmentalists say the proposal is based not on data but on wishful thinking. "The USDA is doing what it can to push corn production and biofuels," says National Wildlife Federation Senior Program Manager Julie Sibbing. The thinking on conservation, she says, is, "Why not have your cake and eat it, too?"
Sibbing says Congress could do a number of things to strengthen the conservation program, such as making information about payment rates more accessible to farmers and keeping the rates competitive. She and others emphasize the annual payback: hundreds of millions of pounds of nitrogen and phosphorus kept out of water; nearly half a billion tons of soil, critical to any farming operation, preserved; and increases in animal populations.
"The way our farm subsidy system works, you could farm and lose your crop everywhere and still make money because there are so many safeguards," she says. "But without CRP, we won't have the space for wildlife." Or buffers to counter the downside of ethanol production.U.S. News & World Report
