SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY

LENGTH: 2020 words

COMMITTEE: SENATE AGRICULTURE,NUTRITION & FORESTRY

HEADLINE: 2002 FARM BILL

TESTIMONY-BY: LEE KLEIN, PRESIDENT

AFFILIATION: NATIONAL CORN GROWERS ASSOCIATION

BODY:
July 31, 2001

Statement of Lee Klein President National Corn Growers Association

Before the United States Senate Agriculture Committee

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify here today about conservation. My name is Lee Klein and I serve as President of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), representing more than 31,000 direct members and the 300,000 corn farmers throughout the nation who make check-off payments each year. I farm near Battle Creek in northeast Nebraska. My wife and I raise corn, soybeans, rye, alfalfa and hay and we manage a cow/calf operation. I also serve as a member of the Board of Directors with the Lower Elkhorn Natural Resources District. This testimony is also presented on behalf of the American Soybean Association.

NCGA members have a commitment to our community to ensure that we have clean water and healthy, viable soil to ensure the land is productive for many years to come. We take responsibility for our farming activities and must do so with a keen eye towards conservation, productivity and marketing.

NCGA supports voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs that the past farm bills have created. We believe that flexibility in programs is essential for their widespread adoption, given local variances in conservation and water quality priorities, production practices, climate, soil type and many other factors. These programs have demonstrated agriculture's commitment to working collaboratively with the United States Department of Agriculture and other organizations and a commitment to water quality, air quality, habitat protection, and a healthy environment. We believe that these voluntary programs have been successful in producing environmental benefits. For several years NCGA has worked with other groups to promote conservation practices by: partnering with the National Conservation Buffer Council to enroll 2 million miles of buffer and filter strips by 2002; developing the Fishable Waters Act with fishing and conservation groups through the fishable waters coalition; collaborating as a part of the Conservation Technology Information Center to adopt Core 4 Conservation; and working through a large number of state corn grower association water quality initiatives and grower involvement in local watershed groups.

Several Members of the Committee have introduced legislation to address the expansion of voluntary, incentive-based conservation programs. We look forward to continued work on elements of each of these bills in the comprehensive farm bill package. NCGA believes that the Conservation Title of the next farm bill should focus more on conservation practices of land in production, rather than conservation programs that take land out of production. Given scarce federal dollars, we prioritize those programs that provide financial assistance for adopting or maintaining conservation practices on land that is in production.

NCGA is interested in new conservation programs that assist growers in maintaining and/or undertaking new conservation practices in their farming operations. It is important that these programs be implemented on ground that is in production and will not become a set-aside program. As we look at broader Clean Water Act issues and regulations, such as Confined Animal Feeding Operations, Total Maximum Daily Loads and Hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico, we know that corn growers play an important role in maintaining a healthy environment. Agricultural producers face increasing regulatory burdens whether it is local, state or federal requirements on the management of their land. We support programs that will work with our members in utilizing conservation practices and work to maintain a healthy environment. Specifically, NCGA has been focusing on legislation that would provide environmental incentive payments for growers that are currently utilizing conservation practices on their ground or will undertake new practices that provide conservation benefits. The Conservation Security Act, a conservation incentive payment program, reaches these goals. NCGA believes that the Conservation Security Act, working with commodity programs and the past farm bill conservation programs, such as CRP, WRP, EQIP and Farmland protection, allow for a new focus on conservation.

The Conservation Security Act is unique in its approach because it recognizes an important part of conservation practice adoption across the farming community - which is, that growers need financial and technical assistance in management of their operations based on conservation principles. This is not always as easy or as obvious as creating and managing a filter strip along the waterway that runs through your land. Rather, it is the intensive management practices or altering tillage practices that can become as much or more important in reaching our conservation goals, and which add to the costs and risks of the farming operation. These are the areas that need to be the focus of the next farm bill, where policymakers work with growers to find conservation practices that fit in with their management and stewardship of the land. There are many growers who are currently undertaking this effort, and they should be rewarded, not neglected, or penalized for their innovation. Again, any type program must maintain flexibility for local implementation to maximize participation.

Regarding existing programs, those areas with the most environmental benefits should be the focus of any current programmatic changes, such as the Conservation Reserve Program and the National Conservation Buffer Initiative. Programs that take land out of production -- set-asides -- should focus on the most environmentally sensitive areas and not take whole farms out of production. This is why NCGA supported the Wetlands Pilot Project last year, which uses local flexibility to meet the environmental concerns facing a specific area of the country. Small wetland areas that join CRP land should be eligible for inclusion in the CRP - it just makes sense to protect this land. And yet, due to stringent interpretations of the program, these lands were not eligible for enrollment. With regard to the CRP acreage cap, NCGA supports maintaining the CRP at 36.4 million acres with any small increase for the most environmentally sensitive areas included in the continuous signup (buffer strips, wetland pilot project).

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) had great goals of targeting scarce resources at the most significant water quality needs in each state, however, the targeting of funds has been excessive, creating a very narrow program. NCGA supports changes that would broaden the participation in EQIP and increase funding for both livestock and crop sectors of the program. EQIP implementation should also be altered to change the length of the contract, the ability to receive payments in the first year of the contract, and eliminate the size restrictions of the animal operations.

Another way to look at the adoption and implementation of conservation practices is through programs like Core 4 Conservation. The goals of Core 4 Conservation -- Better Soil, Cleaner Water, Greater Profits and a Brighter Future -- are based in common sense. Promoting these goals demonstrates our recognition of the inextricable link between profitability and environmental protection in modern agriculture. Improving our nation's soil and water resources - the raw materials of agriculture - enables producers to realize short-term benefits as well as long-term sustainability of their operations. Practices that may be used in a Core 4 Conservation system include conservation tillage, crop nutrient management, pest management (Integrated Pest Management), conservation buffers, water management (including irrigation, conservation and tile drainage) and other site-specific practices. Working with local advisors, producers select appropriate conservation practices and design a site-specific system that minimizes soil erosion, enhances water infiltration and retention, filters pollution from runoff and more efficiently manages inputs to increase profits.

Each of these programs mentioned provide an integral part of the overall conservation and environment/water quality objects. Federal programs provide financial resources and technical assistance to facilitate the adoption and management of conservation practices. Federal, state and local cost-share programs are essential for the greater benefit provided by these practices. Our members are engaged in farming as a livelihood and must maintain the ability to raise productive crops on their land and market their crops to maximize profitability. Corn growers depend heavily on foreign and domestic markets for utilization of their crops.

NCGA recognizes that regulatory activity is increasing regarding livestock operations and manure management and application Regulatory actions in this area will have significant impacts on both our customers and the U.S. Corn Industry. The U.S. livestock industry is the number one consumer of domestic corn. Just as we are concerned that the corn production could shift to foreign countries, we are also concerned about livestock production shifts to foreign countries. Both areas must be given the tools and resources to comply with new regulations if we are to remain competitive in a global market place.

Recognizing that there are still significant gains to be made in water quality, we believe that our goals of clean water, productive land and a viable domestic market are attainable. NCGA believes that USDA is the primary federal government resource to assist growers across the country in attaining these goals. Whether it is through the technical assistance provided to growers for compliance with a myriad of government programs or the technical assistance for voluntarily adopting a conservation practice, USDA has the structure with local delivery units, to provide the assistance necessary for growers to continue their commitment to the land. Funding for technical assistance must be adequate for proper administration of these programs and to allow us to meet our conservation goals.

In assisting producers with the adoption of conservation practices, NCGA supports an increased role of third party vendors. There are many individuals and organizations that have the qualifications to provide this assistance and USDA should recognize their work in assisting producers with the programmatic requirements of new and existing farm bill conservation programs.

NCGA closely monitors the amount and speed at which new land comes into production in South America, specifically in Argentina and Brazil. As set aside and acreage idling programs in the United States increase, the rate at which land in South America is cultivated increases. The United States cannot maintain a competitive advantage if the U.S. regulatory activity forces up production costs, if the U.S. transportation infrastructure cannot deliver our goods to domestic and foreign markets in a cost-effective manner and if the United States drives our customers further from the point of domestic corn production. All of these elements must be considered when analyzing the impacts of domestic environmental regulatory activity.

As the Committee continues its work on the Farm Bill, we urge you to take all of these elements into consideration. NCGA members strive to be good stewards of the land, but must do so in a manner in which they maintain competitiveness in global markets. Primarily, this is our opposition to conservation programs that idle acreage across the United States. We also see the pressures of environmental regulatory activity having significant impacts on our domestic customers, the livestock industry and potential impacts on row crop production. Conservation programs must acknowledge these factors and work with producers to undertake conservation practices on land in production while allowing for the flexibility for differing regional areas of production.



LOAD-DATE: August 2, 2001