SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY

LENGTH: 2053 words

COMMITTEE: SENATE AGRICULTURE,NUTRITION & FORESTRY

HEADLINE: 2002 FARM BILL

TESTIMONY-BY: GARY MAST, FIRST VICE PRESIDENT

AFFILIATION: NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION DISTRICTS

BODY:
July 31, 2001

Statement of Gary Mast, First Vice President

National Association of Conservation Districts

relative to the

Conservation Title of the Farm Bill

Presented to the

United States Senate

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry

I. Background

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am Gary Mast and I am a sixth-generation self-employed farmer. Along with my brother and two other partners, I operate a dairy farm and custom crop harvest business near Millersburg, Ohio. I have served on the board of the Holmes County Soil and Water Conservation District for more than 20 years and have served as president of the Ohio Federation of Soil and Water Conservation Districts. I have also served on the Board of Directors and am now First Vice President of the National Association of Conservation Districts. I appreciate your invitation to share conservation districts' proposals for the conservation title of the next farm bill and offer a preliminary assessment of the House Agriculture Committee's proposal for conservation in the legislation. The National Association of Conservation Districts - NACD - is the nonprofit organization that represents the nation's 3,000 conservation districts and 17,000 men and women - district officials - who serve on their governing boards. Conservation districts are local units of government established under state law to carry out natural resource management programs at the local level. Currently, conservation districts work with NRCS and others to provide technical and other assistance to more than two- and-one-half million cooperating landowners and operators to help them manage and protect their land and water resources. Conservation districts encompass virtually all of the private lands in the United States.

I am here today to represent the views of those 17,000 conservation district officials. But more than that, as locally elected or appointed public officials, collectively we represent the American public; all of the constituents in the districts we serve. As we talk today about USDA's conservation programs and the next Farm Bill, I urge you to keep in mind that we are the people who work at the very point where the programs you authorize are delivered to the customers.

Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee, the nation's 3,000 conservation districts are pleased with the leadership that you have all provided for conservation in the next Farm Bill. We also appreciate Mr. Harkin's vision in outlining a new approach to working lands conservation embodied in his Conservation Security Act (CSA). The concept behind the CSA is one that conservation districts have supported for many years, and I will address that issue later in my remarks. We also believe that the concepts outlined in complementary proposals developed by Mr. Lugar, Mr. Crapo and others.

We recognize the difficult task the Committee faces in crafting the next Farm Bill. From research, to trade issues, to risk management and income support, no other committee in the Congress has a more difficult task than yours in arriving at equitable responses to the many challenges facing modern American agriculture.

While we recognize the many competing needs in the agriculture sector, we also know that conservation plays a vital role in ensuring the future health and vitality of the nation's private working lands. Since its enactment more than 15 years ago, the conservation title has evolved into a strong commitment from policymakers and the agricultural community to wisely manage and use the nation's natural resources. The next Farm Bill, which the Committee is currently developing, presents an opportunity to re- energize that commitment and build on the foundation first laid in 1985.

Mr. Chairman, I will focus my remarks today on a new vision conservation districts have for private lands conservation in America. We also have a number of recommendations for adjusting and maintaining the conservation programs currently authorized by statute, which I will discuss in Section III of my statement. And, as you requested, in Section IV, I will share our preliminary assessment of the proposal adopted by the House Agriculture Committee last week.

II. A New Vision for Conservation

The private working lands that comprise America's farms, forests and ranches represent 70 percent of our nation's land - nearly 1.5 billion acres. That working land provides us not only with food and fiber for our own use, but with an array of exportable goods as well. It provides an economic engine and a tax base for rural communities and nearby cities.

But private lands also provide us with many intangible benefits. For example:

- Nearly 90 percent of the rain and snow that recharges our water supply falls on private land.

- About half of the nation's endangered species rely on private land for at least 80 percent of their habitat.

- Private lands are the vital bridges among public refuges, the links that prevent wildlife communities from becoming isolated from each other, threatening biodiversity.

- Many of our open space and scenic vistas are on private lands.

- Private lands are important in sequestering carbon and producing bioenergy products.

In setting the tone for the next Farm Bill, Congress has a new opportunity to elevate the importance of private lands conservation by creating create conservation incentives to better manage and protect for those private lands. We believe that expanded, v- voluntary, locally led and incentives-based initiatives will be the solution to helping and encourage them to implement the conservation practices that will America achieve its environmental goals.

Two years ago, we at NACD established a task force to examine how the Farm Bill conservation programs are working so far and look at what is needed to elevate and expand conservation in this country beyond what we're now doing. This task force included a former chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, the president of a major land-grant university and farmers, ranchers, district officials and district employees, representatives from state conservation agencies and from private industry.

Our task force began its work by developing a set of guiding principles, both simple and straightforward, to help crystallize our vision of what is needed to strengthen private lands conservation in America. We believe these principles should be the foundation upon which to refine and expand our federal, state, local and private conservation efforts. These principles are:

- Maintain a voluntary, incentive-driven approach to help private landowners and managers protect their soil, water, wildlife and related resources.

- Increase local leadership and involvement in carrying out programs, setting priorities, developing policies and advocating natural resource conservation and management.

- Utilize science-based technology in making conservation decisions, including those for accountability and baseline establishment.

- Provide land managers with the technical assistance they need to achieve conservation objectives.

- Emphasize the value of cost-effective conservation practices that, for all Americans, enhance quality of life, restore air and watershed health, and contribute to safe and affordable food and fiber.

In formulating our recommendations, the task force reached out to every conservation district in the nation for input on how our conservation programs are working now and what the workload needs are. We asked for suggestions for improving current programs and for new ideas to advance the nation's agenda for conservation. More than 1,700 conservation districts offered suggestions, ranging from modifications to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) to the need for our conservation agenda to reach all communities and watersheds, not just a few targeted areas or producers.

We also contacted a wide cross-section of organizations with an interest in conservation to get their suggestions and comments. Fifty organizations responded, many with key suggestions and ideas on how we can work together to strengthen America's conservation agenda. Several of the organizations we have worked with have testified or will testify before this committee. We were encouraged to find that more than a few entertained thoughts similar to ours and we have incorporated many of their ideas into our recommendations. Our working paper, which is posted on NACD's web site, (http://www.nacdnet.org/ ) invites input from anyone who is interested.

The people we surveyed as well as those we talked to at conferences and meetings, in private conversations, through postal mail and email all shared a common commitment to the cause of natural resources conservation on private lands. They also shared a common message, and the more we listened, the more similar the message sounded.

The State of the Land

Since the Farm Bill conservation title was enacted in 1985, we've made a lot of progress in reducing soil erosion and increasing productivity. Many of the gains we've made have been the result of conservation compliance, the adoption of conservation tillage, and farmer and rancher participation in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) and EQIP. Since 1996, however, the gains have slowed.

Data from the Conservation Technology Information Center (CTIC) show that in 2000, about 37 percent of the cropland in the U.S. used some form of conservation tillage. Although this is a substantial increase from the early 1980s when it first became popular, the rate of growth in this practice has slowed in recent years. To achieve CTIC's national goal of having 60 percent of all crop acres under some form of conservation tillage by 2005, we must increase its adoption substantially over the next four years.

Reports such as NRCS's National Resources Inventory, EPA's latest 305(b) Report to Congress, the Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Coterminous United States 1986 to 1997 also tell us that progress has leveled off and that we still have a long way to go in meeting the nation's conservation goals.

A snapshot tells us that:

- According to EPA, more than 300,000 miles of rivers and shorelines streams and nearly 8 5 million acres of lakes are impaired with sediment, nutrients and microorganisms.

- America's private landowners have planted more than one million miles of buffer strips to protect the nation's rivers and streams. Meeting the ambitious goal of two million miles of buffers will hinge upon expanding voluntary conservation incentive programs.

Buffers. America's private landowners have planted more than one million miles of buffer strips to protect the nation's rivers - filtering sediment, strengthening streambanks, shading the water to reduce overheating, and providing vital habitat. Working with NRCS offices and local conservation districts through voluntary programs, landowners have committed more than 3.6 million acres of property to safeguard our waters.

The buffer initiative is fueled by local technical expertise, federal and state cost-share programs, the Wetlands Reserve Program, and Conservation Reserve Program funds. An ambitious goal of two million miles remains - but the effort will hinge upon continued support of voluntary conservation incentive programs.

- Wetlands losses have fallen by 80 percent since 1986, due largely to the Farm Bill's wetlands conservation provision and Wetlands Reserve Program. But, sometime this year, the program will reach its acreage limit.

- Livestock Runoff from concentrated animal feeding operations is becoming an increasing concern. An estimated 272,000 animal feeding operations need technical assistance to develop sound environmental operating plans over the next 10 years.

- As much as 60 percent of the nation's rangeland and 46 percent of permanent pasture are is deteriorating.

- Roughly 2,200 aging flood control dams around the nation need to be rehabilitatedion or decommissioneding at an estimated cost as high as $540 million.



LOAD-DATE: August 2, 2001