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Conservation programs would see a $3 billion increase per year under an alternate farm bill proposal House and Senate members from outside the Agriculture Committee introduced yesterday.
The "Healthy Farms Food and Fuels Act of 2007" from Reps. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) and Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) would expand the farm bill's conservation and energy programs, provide more support for organic farmers and dish out more money for schools to buy fruits and vegetables.
The bill itself is unlikely to see any play in committee, since the leaders of the House and Senate Agriculture panels will take up their own farm bill rewrites. But the measure, which has over 70 cosponsors in the House, sets the stage for some of the debate that will surround the farm bill as it moves through the committee and the House floor.
"Our intent is to help shape the debate of the future course of farm policy," Kind said yesterday.
The bill provides funding increases for six conservation programs. It would lift the cap on the Conservation Security Program, double the size of the Wetlands Reserve Program, increase a wildlife habitat program three-fold and make a grasslands reserve program five times larger. It would also boost support for working lands and keep 39.2 million acres in the Conservation Reserve Program.
The increases could help address the backlog of applications from farmers trying to get into conservation programs, said Rep. Tom Allen (D-Maine), a cosponsor of the bill. In Maine, three-fourths of farmers looking to enroll in conservation programs are turned away, he said.
The bill does not take up the sticky issue of how to fund the increases. The farm bill has to work within spending limits from the Budget Committee, so many of the increases will have to find other offsets. Kind said he is working on some "creative thinking" about how to find other areas for savings.
Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Defense, Audubon and other environmental groups all applauded the bill. But other agriculture experts who follow conservation programs said the dramatic increases might be too much, and that Agriculture Department officials would not actually be able to administer the increases.
Peterson looks for more modest conservation boosts
For his part, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) said yesterday he is looking at proposals from Pheasants Forever, Audubon and other conservation and hunting groups to shape his leadership of the conservation title of the farm bill.
Peterson said in a call with reporters that he wants to preserve the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program, which pay farmers to idle land.
He also wants to put more money in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which provides cost-share support to help farmers make environmental upgrades to working lands.
"What I know is that is kind of what we're talking about," Peterson said. "Fine tuning programs to make them more wildlife friendly, and some of that kind of thing."
But the sticky wicket will be the budget. Peterson said it would be hard to find funding to support any dramatic increases.
"Given the budget numbers some people are talking about ... I don't know how we can find money for conservation and some of these other things," Peterson said. "It is putting us in the crosshairs."
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