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Millions of conservation acres going to row crops |
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Farmers are likely to remove millions of acres from federal conservation contracts next year to plant row crops, and the Agriculture Department does not plan on enrolling new farmland to make up the difference.
USDA's fiscal 2009 budget proposal assumes the agency won't conduct a large general signup for the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to set aside land for wildlife habitat and to protect soil and water quality.
Department economists also estimate that farmers enrolled in the program would take more than 2 million acres out of conservation next year as their contracts expire, driven in part by the desire to plant more corn whose price has soared in response to demand for ethanol.
"Given the fact that we have these high prices out there and the growth of ethanol production, some farmers are opting to drop out of CRP and put their land back in production," said USDA budget director Scott Steele in an interview.
Sportsmen and conservation groups refer to the conservation program as the "holy grail" for wildlife habitat and oppose loosening the conservation contracts. The 20-year-old conservation program provides nearly 34 million acres of habitat for birds and other species.
The Bush administration budget proposal includes more than $1 million as a "placeholder" for the conservation program, Steele said, but the agency has no plans for a new general signup to get more farmers in the program. With corn prices almost twice as high as they were two years ago, due in part to the increased demand for the crop to make ethanol, the agency wants more land available for crop production.
"Given the fact that we are in such a tight market ... we don't want to exacerbate that and take acres out of production at a time when prices are this high," Steele said.
USDA does plan signups for farmers to enroll buffer strips to improve soil and water quality. Steele said that may include "several hundred thousand" acres in small parcels, but not "large chunks of land."
The conservation group Ducks Unlimited said yesterday the lack of a large-scale enrollment would diminish the effectiveness of the program. The group credits the program with creating habitat to support more than 2 million ducks in the prairie pothole region, North and South Dakota and Montana.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 07 February 2008 )
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