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The Conservation Reserve Program is not oversubscribed, but it does need restructuring to focus on more environmentally sensitive lands, Agriculture Department officials said yesterday.
The program — a favorite of hunting and conservation groups — pays farmers to idle some 36 million acres of land. Farm and energy groups have said releasing acreage from conservation contracts and allowing farmers to plant corn and other crops would help relieve the pressure to produce corn for ethanol.
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said some land in the program came in because it was "first through the door," not because it was environmentally sensitive. That land could go back into production, he said, as long as acreage comes in to replace it.
"There are still a lot of opportunities for additional enrollments in CRP across the country side," Rey told the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday.
The future of the 20-year-old program is uncertain. The Agriculture Department has recommended the next farm bill allow farmers to harvest switchgrass and other biofuels crops from CRP land, as well as require more stringent environmental thresholds to enroll new land in CRP.
The biofuels component would only apply to new acreage enrolled in the program, not existing contracts, Natural Resources and Conservation Service Chief Arlen Lancaster told the panel yesterday.
In a separate report, a group of farm economists predicted yesterday that the demand for corn would cause total CRP enrollment to drop by 4 million acres over the the next three years and stay at those lower levels, not picking back up again as USDA predicts.
The 10-year outlook from the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute was based on continuation of current policy. Established in 1984 by a congressional grant, FAPRI has research centers at Iowa State University and the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Rey said development of cellulosic energy should help relieve some of the tension between agricultural production and conservation. "Over time, if nothing else happened, I would see a conflict between corn and conservation," Rey said. "But the major benefit of cellulosic ethanol is it would take some of that pressure off."
Appropriators want to restore watershed funds
Members of the spending panel also indicated their desire to restore funding for watershed programs and local conservation councils zeroed out by the Bush administration in its budget proposal.
Restoring the funds would continue the pattern of the past four years, when the administration has tried to cut the programs and Congress has funded them close to previous spending levels.
Appropriators from both sides of the aisle blasted Rey and Lancaster yesterday for eliminating funding for watershed operations, flood prevention operations and watershed surveys and planning. Together, the programs received just over $100 million last year to assist local communities with watershed projects.
"It's like you're on your own, whether you can deal with or not," said subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
Rey and Lancaster said that the watershed programs — which fund projects like small dams, irrigation systems and soil erosion control — show little environmental benefit. Instead, they want to focus USDA's efforts on technical assistance for watershed rehabilitation and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.
"As far as planning new structures or dams, we are proposing to get out of that business," Rey said.
Members also criticized the proposal to cut the Resource Conservation and Development Councils' current $50.3 million budget down to $14.8 million and reduce the staff of 375 coordinators down to 50. Rey said the money was originally intended to help the councils start up, "so they could eventually be more self-sustaining."
"If we think you can put the burden back on local communities, we are kidding ourselves, that is just not going to work," said Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.)
The councils are locally based groups that work with farmers, city governments and nonprofit groups to implement conservation or economic development projects.
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