The Legislative Route
by Alyson Chapin
In 1977, the U.S. government implemented the Soil and Water Resources Conservation Act. The act requires an assessment of agricultural lands every 10 years and established the Natural Resource Conservation Service within the U.S. Department of Agriculture to carry out the assessment.
NRCS workers found alarming results when they assessed agricultural lands across the United States — topsoil was eroding at astronomical rates and wetlands were disappearing.
“This was the basis for congress to act for conservation rather than just production,” said John Gillies, a district conservationist for NRCS.
Western Washington University professor Lynn Robbins said two major provisions in the 1985 farm bill came from the NRCS studies; the sodbuster provision, which states a producer can’t plow highly erodable land without a plan, and the swampbuster provision, which states a producer can’t drain a wetland to plant commodity crops.
Robbins said more than 35 million acres of land were set aside for conservation in 1985 because of these provisions.
Gillies said the NRCS in Whatcom County deals mainly with swampbuster provisions because land erosion is not a major problem in Western Washington.
Meanwhile, the 1996 farm bill expires in October 2002. In response to this, the Bush administration recently negotiated policies and funding changes for a wide range of issues from nutrition to agriculture that will determine policies and procedures for farmers until 2011.
Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy is at the forefront of current farm bill reform.
“There are some provisions in the new farm bill that are intended to help address environmental concerns,” said John Winsky, a press representative for Sen. Leahy.
Winsky said the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, a cost-sharing program, will receive $9 billion over the next six years to help farmers adapt to new regulations. EQIP will provide 75 percent of the money for adopting new measures addressing regulatory concerns. Overall, the new farm bill will add $17.1 billion to the USDA budget.
However, the Environmental Working Group — a non-profit, Washington, D.C.-based environmental organization — questions whether the new bill finds a balance between the economy and the environment.
EWG press secretary Jon Corsiglia said his organization wants to see a farm bill with meaningful payment limits and effective program funds. His greatest concern is not having enough federal money for the farms that actually need it, Corsiglia said
“The new farm bill provisions increase conservation program budgets by 80 percent, but the previous budget was close to nothing so that’s not very much,” Corsiglia said.
Part of the new bill establishes the Conservation Security Program. It sets aside $2 billion for CSP, which makes more farmers eligible for conservation funding. According to the provisions of CSP, farmers can be compensated for projects they completed up to 10 years ago, which worries EWG.
“It will suck money right out of the budget,” Corsiglia said.
The new farm bill has many problems, he said, including the lack of meaningful limits when it comes to subsidies.
“Primarily big agribusiness will receive (subsidies) and there are loopholes in programs which make payment limits meaningless for larger farmers and agribusiness,” Corsiglia said.
The bill also puts fewer caps on subsidies and the money for conservation programs is in savings — meaning money shortages, he said.
“We’re going to continue to see farmers lining up because there’s no money for them,” Corsiglia said. “It has always been the case and will continue to be the case.”
Although the farm bill’s critics wonder where money for the farmers will come from, the bill promotes agricultural conservation on farmlands throughout the United States.
“This farm bill is unique, because there’s a lot of funding authority given to (agricultural) conservation provisions,” Gillies said. “There’s a lot of emphasis placed on conservation.”
Senior Alyson Chapin studies environmental education and mass communications at Western. This is her first published piece.
