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A prairie/woodland horror story (Farm Bill alert)

Earlier this year, a landowner bulldozed, burned, and sprayed a high-quality Iowa woodland with huge hickory trees and diverse wildflowers.  (A nearby virgin prairie with orchids had recently met a similar fate.)   When confronted by an angry neighbor, the landowner responded, "Lady, this is the new economics.  The government will pay me to plant rowcrops on this land for two years, and then I'll get paid to plant shrubs and put it in the Conservation Reserve Program."

If you don't want your tax dollars used that way, now is the time to help change the Farm Bill.  It is critical that the Senate hear from conservation-minded constituents this week, especially members of the Senate Agriculture Committee (listed below).    Senators are already hearing plenty from those who want to continue to spend a lot on commodity crops and little on conservation.   

A message to help Farm Bill conservation can be very simple:  I support a strong conservation title in the next Farm Bill.   

If you especially want to help stop the use of Farm Bill dollars to subsidize natural area destruction, there are three other important short messages:

(1)  I support the Grassland Reserve Program.   

The proposed Grassland Reserve Program, included in Senator Harkin's Farm Bill and a few other versions, would pay landowners, via easement, to protect virgin prairies, which are currently not eligible for farm programs.  The Reserve would help offset the current Farm Bill incentives to turn prairies into cornfields.  

(2)  I support Super Sodbuster.  

Super Sodbuster, included in Harkin's Farm Bill,  would make it much more difficult for landowners to tear up virgin prairies and still get crop support payments, crop insurance, and other Farm Bill payments on the rest of their land.  

(3)  I support the CRP date-certain eligibility clause.  

I'm not sure this clause has an official name, but it's important.   If it becomes law, land which is put into rowcrops for the first time after the new Farm Bill is enacted would not be eligible for the CRP (Conservation Reserve Program).    This clause would close the current loophole which says that land has to have been in rowcrops for two of the past five years in order to be eligible for the CRP.    The result of this ongoing two-out-of-five provision is that some landowners around the country are plowing prairies and bulldozing woodlands, getting crop support payments for putting that land in rowcrops for two years, and then getting paid again to enroll that land in the CRP.   The CRP date-certain eligibility clause, which only Harkin has proposed so far, would prevent actions like the one in the horror story.  

The Grassland Reserve, Super Sodbuster, and the CRP date-certain eligibility clause are vulnerable.   They could be weakened or sacrificed as Farm Bill compromises are hammered out.   The more support they get, the likelier they are to become law.   If you'd like to help, the most effective way would be a phone call or email to your senator's office.   If you don't know the phone number or email address, check the Internet or your local library.   Most U.S. Senators (if not all) have their own websites. Thank you very much!

SENATE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE

Tom Harkin, IA, Chairman
Richard G. Lugar, IN, Ranking Republican Member
Patrick Leahy, VT
Kent Conrad, ND
Thomas A. Daschle, SD
Max Baucus, Mt
Blanche Lincoln, AR
Zell Miller, GA 
Debbie Stabenow, MI
E. Benjamin Nelson, NE
Mark Dayton, MN
Paul Wellstone, MN
Jesse Helms, NC
Thad Cochran, MS
Mitch McConnell, KY
Pat Roberts, KS
Peter Fitzgerald, IL
Craig Thomas, WY
Wayne Allard, CO
Tim Hutchinson, AR
Mike Crapo, ID


Cindy Hildebrand
grantridge@aol.com
Ames, IA  50010
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