American Farmland Trust *
Environmental Defense
Environmental Working Group * Trust for Public Land
Because farmland and ranchland covers more than half of the American landscape, agriculture dramatically impacts water quality, food safety, wildlife habitat, and the pace of sprawl. Fortunately, many farmers and ranchers are implementing land use practices to meet these environmental challenges. For example, nearly half of America's farmers have changed the way they plow to reduce polluted runoff into nearby streams.
But, most farmers and ranchers seeking federal assistance to improve water quality, enhance food safety, combat sprawl, or protect rare wildlife species are rejected. Every day, thousands of farmers and ranchers seeking federal financial and technical assistance to meet many of the nation's pressing environmental challenges are turned away due to inadequate federal funding.
Today, less than 10 percent of federal farm spending rewards farmers and ranchers who help clean up polluted rivers and lakes, save endangered species, reduce pesticide applications, or protect open space from encroaching development. Because so little federal funding is dedicated to conservation programs administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture:
Congress has an opportunity to reward these environmental stewards when legislators reauthorize federal farm programs in the coming months. Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), and 67 other bipartisan members of Congress have introduced H.R. 2375, the Working Lands Stewardship Act of 2001, which provides more than $7 billion in annual conservation payments to farmers, ranchers and private forest landowners. In addition, Rep. John Thune (R-SD) and 30 members of Congress have introduced H.R. 1949, the Conservation Security Act of 2001, which provides approximately $4 billion in annual payments to farmers and ranchers who implement basic conservation practices, such as better management of fertilizer and pesticides.
In addition to rewarding farmers when they preserve open space, improve water quality, or restore habitat for rare species, conservation payments ensure that federal farm payments flow to all farmers, not just commodity crop farmers. Today, more than 90 percent of federal farm payments provide income subsidies to the one-third of America's farmers who grow commodity crops like corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton and rice. By contrast, all farmers, ranchers and private foresters are eligible for conservation payments, which can help supplement income, reduce input costs, ease regulatory burdens, and reimburse farmers for good stewardship.
In addition, conservation payments will ensure that federal farm payments are regionally equitable. Only 15 states received a combined annual average of $12.2 billion in FY 1998 and FY 1999 -- or 74 percent of all direct payments to farmers. At the same time, five of the nation's largest agricultural states -- Florida, California, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania -- received a combined annual average of $918 million -- or just 6 percent of federal farm spending even though these states jointly account for 29 percent of the gross revenues earned by America's farmers and ranchers.
If Congress merely fulfilled the existing $2 billion conservation backlog, many farmers would receive significantly more federal funding. For example, farmers in Florida would receive approximately $72 million if Congress provided sufficient funding to meet current demand for USDA conservation programs, or 45 percent more funding than Florida farmers received from USDA, on average, in FY 1998 and 1999. Farmers in New Jersey would receive approximately $4.7 million for conservation, compared with $2.9 million in average USDA payments. Nine other states would also receive more funding from conservation payments than from existing USDA payments if Congress merely met existing conservation demand -- Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, Alaska and West Virginia. And while future demand is difficult to predict, conservation funding in nine states -- Utah, Wyoming, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Oregon, New York, Maryland, Hawaii, Delaware -- would likely exceed current USDA payments if conservation funding reached $7 billion or more annually. Most Congressional districts in California would also receive more funding than is currently provided by USDA under this scenario.
Farm Bill proposals released last week by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Larry Combest (R-TX) and Conservation Subcommittee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) recognized overwhelming demand for conservation programs. But these proposals will not provide sufficient funding to reward most farmers and ranchers who meet our environmental challenges, will focus most new conservation spending on large feedlots, and will perpetuate the regional and individual inequities that characterize current federal farm spending. Under the Combest and Lucas proposals, most farmers, ranchers and private foresters seeking federal assistance to provide clean water, habitat, or open space would continue to be rejected. And, most federal farm funding would continue to flow to a handful of states in the Great Plains and the Midwest.
Technical Assistance
Every day, thousands of farmers and ranchers seek professional advice from more than 3,000 Conservation Districts, locally-led organizations that work with USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to provide basic technical assistance. These federally funded local experts provide a wide variety of voluntary technical assistance to landowners, including information on appropriate farming and ranching practices, financial assistance programs, and soil conditions. But, approximately fifty percent of the farmers and ranchers seeking basic technical assistance on farm practices that filter polluted runoff or that provide habitat for wildlife fail to receive that assistance.
At the same time that farmer and rancher demand for NRCS technical assistance has grown, the number of NRCS technical assistance staff levels has fallen by 7 percent during the past decade, from 10,870 in 1990 to 10,085 in 2000. Although federal funding levels for NRCS have increased slightly between 1990 and 2000, these increases have not kept pace with salary and inflation adjustments, forcing NRCS to reduce staff levels. In the last decade, total staff levels have fallen by 13 percent, from 13,406 in 1990 to 11,601 in 2000, and may drop by 1,000 additional field staff during the current fiscal year. By contrast, NRCS estimates that 41,300 local field staff would be needed by 2005 to provide the basic technical assistance sought by farmers and ranchers. Problems created by declining staff levels will be exacerbated by new regulations requiring the development of nutrient management plans for large feedlots.
Some conservation practices can actually reduce farm costs, including tillage practices designed to combat soil erosion. But many practices that improve water quality and wildlife habitat or reduce the pace of sprawl increase capital and labor costs, or reduce farm yields. Providing adequate financial and technical assistance to farmers who implement land management practices to meet our environmental challenges will be costly: farm experts estimate that annual spending on technical assistance alone must be tripled to meet expected demand from farmers and ranchers. Experts predict that farmers tilling 232 million acres of cropland will need technical and financial assistance between 2000 and 2005, and that federally funded technical experts will only be able to meet 30 percent of that demand unless current federal spending is increased.
Water Quality Assistance
Like demand for technical assistance, farmer and rancher demand for financial assistance to implement new land practices and construct new infrastructure that improve water quality exceeds available funding. Farmers and ranchers can implement hundreds of practices which improve water quality and implement new infrastructure that stores manure safely or uses less water. But these practices and infrastructure investments require capital and labor. NRCS' Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides financial assistance to farmers and ranchers by entering into multiyear contracts with landowners to implement new practices, including practices that reduce the need for heavy fertilizer and pesticide applications, and by sharing the cost of implementation of pollution control infrastructure, such as manure lagoons. Half of all EQIP funding has been set aside to help small and medium-sized farmers address the impacts of manure on water quality and public health.
Currently, approximately 70 percent of the farmers and ranchers seeking EQIP funds to share the implementation costs of better land and manure management are rejected due to inadequate funding or program caps. Less than 20,000 of the 75,000 farmers seeking technical and financial assistance through EQIP in FY 2000 received assistance. As farmers are repeatedly rejected, the number of returning applicants has dropped sharply. Consequently, the nation is missing an opportunity to simultaneously increase farmer income and meet many of the nation's most pressing environmental challenges.
Wetlands Restoration
Approximately three-out-of-four farmers and ranchers seeking federal assistance to restore lost wetlands are rejected due to inadequate funding. Currently, more than 3,000 landowners have offered to enroll more than 500,000 acres of wetlands into the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), which pays farmers to retire farmland and restore lost wetlands. A wide variety of wetlands and adjacent lands are eligible, including farmed and grazed land, farmland which has been flooded, rangeland where natural hydrology can be restored, and select lands linking wetlands or located next to wetlands.
Landowners who choose to participate in WRP may sell a conservation easement or enter into a cost-share restoration agreement with NRCS to restore and protect wetlands but retain ownership of the land. The program offers landowners three options: permanent easements, 30-year easements, and restoration cost-share agreements of a minimum 10-year duration. For example, the payment for a perpetual easement will be the lesser of: the agricultural value of the land, an established payment cap, or an amount offered by the landowner. In addition to paying for the easement, NRCS pays 100 percent of the costs of restoring the wetland.
Many of the lost wetlands being offered by farmers and ranchers are located in places where scientists have concluded wetlands restoration is among the most cost-effective solution to many environmental problems. For example, farmers have recently offered to permanently restore nearly 75,000 acres of lost wetlands in Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota - states that are major sources of the fertilizer causing a "dead zone" the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life cannot survive. Scientists have found that restoring lost wetlands - which intercept and filter nutrients from fertilizer before farmland runoff reaches streams and creeks - is among the most cost-effective strategies to reduce the size of the dead zone. Farmers have offered to restore more than 5,000 acres of wetlands in Texas, which suffers the second highest number of repeatedly flooded homes in the nation and was subjected to devastating flooding this year. Restoring lost wetlands would temporarily store and slowly release floodwaters, according to scientists.
Wildlife Habitat Assistance
All farmers and ranchers seeking assistance to protect and restore wildlife habitat on private lands have been rejected in recent years, when funding for NRCS' Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) was cut off. Although some funding was restored for the current fiscal year, program managers are still unable to meet farmer and rancher demand. Experts estimate that more than 10,000 farmers would annually seek federal assistance to protect and restore wildlife habitat if funding were available. The program shares the cost of building wildlife habitat on private lands, and 15 percent of program funding has historically been used to develop wildlife habitat for federally endangered and threatened species.
Unless current spending on NRCS conservation programs like WHIP is significantly increased, farm experts estimate that:
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Combating Sprawl
More than 2 million acres of farm, ranch and private forest land are annually converted for urban uses -- twice the rate of conversion during the 1980s. Hundreds of farmers and ranchers in the path of sprawl who are willing to sell their development rights to maintain productive farms, ranches and forests near urban centers have been rejected due to inadequate funding, although some funding was appropriated for the Farmland Protection Program for the current fiscal year. When funding has been available, farmer and rancher demand has exceeded available funds by a ten-to-one ratio.
The Farmland Protection Program (FPP) provides matching funds to state and local farmland protection programs that purchase development rights from farmers facing development pressure. To be eligible, farms must be large enough to sustain agricultural production, be accessible to local markets, and be among other farmland that can support long-term agricultural production. FPP gives farmers and ranchers a real choice between agriculture and urban development.
As each acre of farm and ranchland is lost, rivers lose their ability to support life, air quality declines, wildlife habitat is fragmented, and a major source of fresh produce and dairy is threatened. Once land is converted, the cost of environmental improvements increases dramatically. Buying development rights from farmers in the path of sprawl is among the most cost-effective ways to preserve high quality farmland and provide safe food supplies to nearby communities.
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The Cost of Doing Nothing
The nation's failure to provide adequate financial and technical assistance undermines our ability to meet many of the environmental challenges posed by agriculture.
One-third of the nation's rivers, 45 percent of the lakes, and 44 percent of the bays assessed by state officials remain too polluted to allow fishing, swimming and drinking. Because farmland and ranchland consumes more than half of the American landscape, polluted runoff from farms and ranches is among the leading reasons. The use of fertilizers has also increased dramatically, increasing from 7.5 million tons to 22 million tons since 1960. But, farmers can implement a variety of practices that improve water quality, including better soil testing, buffers that intercept and filter runoff, and tillage practices that reduce soil erosion. Many of the practices that improve water quality and wildlife habitat also reduce emissions of nitrous oxide, methane and carbon dioxide and help reduce climate change.
Livestock production also threatens water quality. Animals raised in concentrated feedlots annually produce 130 times more waste than people -- five tons per year for every American citizen. Pollution from livestock operators can follow many paths -- ranging from excess field applications to leaching lagoons to evaporation into the air -- contributing to high phosphorous levels in many rivers, lakes and bays. Manure also contains bacteria, viruses and protozoa that threaten food and drinking water supplies as well as opportunities for water-based recreation. But, livestock operators can implement a wide variety of practices to address these threats, including improved manure storage systems, efficient field application, feeding pratices that reduce phosphorous levels, and less animal confinement. New manure management technologies like digesters can help reduce excess manure.
Farmers also impact the safety of the nation's food and drinking water supplies. Since 1964, the use of pesticides has more than tripled even as pesticides have become more toxic. Although America's food supplies remain among the safest in the world, thousands of Americans become sick each year from exposure to pesticides. Many common pesticides are known or suspected to cause brain and nervous system damage, cancer, and disrupt immune systems. Fortunately, farmers can reduce pesticide use by rotating crops, changing planting and harvest schedules, introducing pest predators, and by removing plants that harbor pests.
Farmers, ranchers and foresters also dramatically influence wildlife, including rare species. About half of the nation's federally protected species rely on private lands for at least 80 percent of their habitat. Some modern farming and grazing practices threaten these species by eliminating woodlands and grasslands, leaving too little water in rivers, inviting exotic competitors, and by requiring heavy applications of fertilizers and pesticides. Private forests are increasingly fragmented by harvest and home development, including second home development. But farmers, ranchers and private foresters can change harvest practices to protect grassland birds, install new equipment to use water more efficiently, and implement a variety of other practices to protect wildlife habitat on and near farms, ranches and forests. Retiring environmentally sensitive land, especially converted wetlands, is among the most cost-effective ways to provide habitat for wildlife.
Farmers, ranchers and foresters also serve as the frontline against urban sprawl, and serve as the economic foundation of many rural communities. But, current federal farm programs have largely failed to curb sprawl, save family farms, or reduce rural poverty. The number of farms has fallen from 6 million to less than 2 million since World War II, and approximately half of the nation's remaining farms earn less than $100,000 in gross income. The number of farm jobs fell by 27 percent between 1975 and 1996 and is expected to fall by another 13 percent by 2008. Rural poverty now exceeds urban poverty, and is three times higher for rural minorities. One-fifth of rural children, or about 3 million children, live in poverty.
Meeting these social and environmental challenges will require significant federal spending. But, the costs of our failure to meet these environmental challenges are far greater. For example, soil erosion increases water treatment and dredging costs by more than $2 billion, and federal experts predict that water utilities will spend $20 billion during the next two decades to provide safe drinking water. Helping farmers reduce erosion by retiring highly erodible cropland generates more than $3.5 billion in water quality benefits.
Many of the practices which improve water quality or provide wildlife habitat also reduce the emission of gases that contribute to global climate change. For example, practices which reduce fertilizer applications also reduce the emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. Farmers could reduce methane emissions by burning methane in manure digesters, producing energy. A variety of land management practices, including land retirement and restoration, sequester carbon in the soil.
Reward Stewards For Environmental Benefits
In the next Farm Bill, Congress should increase USDA funding to reward farmers who implement practices that help meet our pressing environmental needs, including clean water and habitat for wildlife. Last year, Congress provided $32 billion in federal farm spending, but less than 8 percent was dedicated for voluntary NRCS conservation programs. Historically, 30 percent of federal farm spending has been dedicated for conservation programs.
Federal farm programs should meet demand for local technical assistance and should reward all farmers, ranchers and private foresters who improve water quality and wildlife habitat, combat sprawl, and help provide safe food supplies. As Congress considers the short-term and long-term future of federal farm programs, Congress should:
In addition to rewarding private landowners when they preserve open space, improve water quality, or restore habitat for rare species, conservation payments flow to all farmers and ranchers, not just commodity crop farmers, and conservation payments will help address regional inequities in federal farm spending.
Today, more than 90 percent of federal farm payments provide income subsidies to the one-third of America's farmers who grow commodity crops like corn, soybeans, wheat cotton and rice. In addition, three-fourths of federal farm payments flow to 15 states and largely ignore states with significant agricultural production, including California, Florida, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and New England states.
By contrast, all farmers are eligible for conservation payments, which can help supplement income, reduce input costs, ease regulatory burdens, and reimburse farmers for good stewardship. And, all states are facing a wide range of environmental challenges, including poor water quality, declining habitat for rare species, and lost open space.
The next Farm Bill should be provide federal funds to all farmers, should reward farmers and other private landowners when they help meet our environmental challenges, and should provide public goods to the taxpayers, including cleaner water, safe food supplies, open space, and habitat for rare species.
