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Lawmakers have agreed to tack the farm bill extension onto whatever spending bill they complete in the next two weeks. It would extend current farm programs through March 15, continuing the current baseline for the bill and giving House and Senate negotiators some breathing room for their conference on a new farm bill.

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said the extension became necessary to keep the baseline intact for the $283 billion bill. Without an extension, the Congressional Budget Office would have cut their total sum for the bill's baseline because of expiring programs, which could have put legislators in a bind with negotiating their new bill under "pay as you go" requirements. The lawmakers could lose billions from their baseline if any programs lapse, an aide for Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said.

This week, the Senate is debating the farm bill rewrite that would oversee agriculture, conservation, energy and nutrition programs for the next five years. Senate leaders have said they expect to complete the bill this week or next. Peterson said he thinks staff from the two chambers will be able to begin negotiations on a conference agreement over the holidays.

"I believe we can get this bill done by the end of January. Everybody I have talked to is on board," Peterson said.

Grassland provision raises questions

The farm bill under debate in the Senate this week would pay farmers to conserve grasslands with one hand, then offer crop subsidies with the other to encourage plowing them up.

The measure is packed with billions of dollars for grasslands reserves and other conservation programs and new "sodsaver" provisions that would block insurance payments for crops on native prairie habitat. But it would also continue a decades-long practice of providing subsidies for wheat, soybeans and other crops, even if they're planted on virgin sod.

"It could be working against itself," acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner said in an interview. "It absolutely makes no sense to be paying farmers through the grassland reserve and then in effect giving them subsidies for breaking out land."

There's a broad effort to protect remaining native prairies as migratory corridors for animals, havens for rare plants and seasonally flooded wetlands that provide both habitat for wildlife and pollution filters for stormwater.

But pressures on grasslands are also growing, spurred by new planting technologies and record high crop prices. Meanwhile, current law places few restrictions on crop subsidies, insurance and disaster payments for farmers who plant on former grasslands.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report this fall calling federal subsidies an "important factor" in encouraging the conversion of millions of acres of grasslands to row crops. The United States lost almost 25 million acres of privately owned grasslands between 1982 and 2003, GAO said.

Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall said continued subsidies for crops planted on grasslands could harm "a whole myriad of species," including plovers, grouse, prairie chickens and ground-nesting birds. Hall's agency consults with the Agriculture Department to help maximize wildlife benefits from farm bill conservation programs.

"Landowners want to have conservation practices on their property, but if the economic market can drive 'I'm in, I'm out,' and they can drop getting a conservation payment because the subsidy payment is higher, then we can't depend on real conservation," Hall said in an interview. "In the long term, this will have pretty negative impacts on our natural resources."

At issue is how far the government will go in using the farm bill to encourage conservation. The 1985 farm bill included the first notable habitat protection provision -- the "swampbuster," which barred subsidies for farmers who drained wetlands.

Ferd Hoefner of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said environmental and sustainable farming groups were "laughed off the planet" when they first proposed swampbuster language in 1981.

"They said, 'What are you talking about?' For over 100 years the government has encouraged farmers to drain and plow land, so why all of a sudden should we stop?'" Hoefner said. "It took people that long to shift gears."

'Sodsaver' provision teeters on 'delicate balance'

The Bush administration proposed a "sodsaver" requirement for the current farm bill that would have blocked any program payments for crops planted on grasslands that have not been put into production for the past six years.

Harkin said he tried and failed to include language in the bill that would be at least as strong as the administration's. "I didn't have the votes for it," Harkin conceded in an interview last week, explaining Great Plains' lawmakers opposed it.

Instead, Harkin's panel approved a measure that would block all insurance for crops planted on "native sod."

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a committee member, said the measure represents a "pretty delicate balance" between conservation and production interests. Farmers in the Midwest and West where grasslands are most abundant are concerned that strict sodsaver requirements could shut down agriculture.

"We don't want to preclude whole chunks of the country from being farmed at all," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), another member of the committee.

Conservation groups acknowledge that blocking access to crop insurance is significant, but they say "native sod" in the Senate bill could be interpreted to apply to very little land.

"Does [native sod] mean it was never cropped?" Hoefner asked. "The Sioux never planted it?"

Hoefner and other advocates for a robust sodsaver provision like the House-passed provision even less. It blocks insurance for crops planted on grasslands for three years. They want a lifelong "sodsaver" to apply to grasslands without recent cropping history and to all program payments farmers can receive, not just crop insurance.

"It's a free country," Hoefner said. "You can break out whatever you want to, but you can't do it on the taxpayer's dime. It should be all parts of the dime."

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