Americans have a great
deal at stake in the next Farm Bill.
No activity is as important to the nation's landscape and environment
as agriculture. Private crop, pasture, and rangelands account for 50% of
the land, and private forests another 20%, of the lower 48 states. Farms
account for 80% of our consumptive water use. Farmers can provide not only
food and fiber, but also clean water, habitat for native wildlife, and
other conservation benefits. Farmers and forest landowners can also help
reduce the threat of climate change and serve as the frontline against
sprawling development.
Widely dispersed family farms and ranches promote related businesses
and provide the economic and social backbone of many rural economies. If
helped to thrive, farms, forests and ranches can help secure the health
and vitality of rural communities.
Farming practices can also help improve public health. Many practices
can greatly reduce human exposure to bacteria and pesticides.
The next Farm bill, scheduled for 2002, can provide the funds to help
farmers achieve these goals for the environment, farm communities, and
public health.
As much as $100 billion
could be up for grabs.
Annual direct payments to farmers have skyrocketed from less than $10
billion in the early 1990s to a record $32 billion in 2000. Through this
period, annual conservation spending held constant at less than $2
billion, a decline from 20% to 6% of spending. Without fundamental
changes, the next Farm Bill will likely average $20 billion a year for
traditional farm commodity programs over the next five or more years. But
traditional agriculture programs at best modestly advance, and to a
significant extent undermine, efforts to help family farmers, the
environment, and public health.
Some members of Congress want to enact a new Farm Bill this year that
includes only "commodity" crop programs. That would leave out
conservation, forestry, research, and rural economic development programs,
as well as the full range of other traditional farm bill programs
including food stamps and nutrition.
A new Farm Bill should move comprehensively. Without a new, broader
approach, farm spending will not help most farmers, consumers, or the
environment. A new Farm Bill should focus $11.8 billion per year on
conservation programs and stewardship incentives, as well as programs for
research, marketing, and rural economic development programs that support
independent and resource-conserving farms.
Challenges and
Opportunities for Public Health and the Environment
Farmers, ranchers, and private foresters can and want to take practical
steps to enhance water supplies, wildlife habitat, and long-term soil
productivity. However, according to USDA, roughly three out of four who
seek assistance for most conservation programs are turned away because of
lack of funds. A reoriented Farm Bill can help meet a broad array of
challenges.
- Water Quality: According to the Environmental Protection
Agency, about 40% of the nation's assessed rivers and lakes are too
polluted to allow fishing, drinking, or swimming, and agriculture is one
of the leading sources of polluted runoff. Incentives and support for
expenses can help farmers significantly improve water quality by
changing how and when they plow and apply fertilizer, by planting winter
cover crops, by diversifying rotations, and by restoring wetlands and
streamside buffers.
- Sprawl: Farmers and ranchers serve as the frontline against
sprawling development, but according to the USDA, more than 2 million
acres of rural land continue to be converted to urban uses every year.
Federal funds to purchase easements can insure these lands remain in
agriculture.
- Safe Food: Although America's food supply is considered one
of the safest in the world, large numbers of Americans still become sick
each year from contaminated food, in part from bacteria found in animals
and improperly managed animal waste. Excessive or misused pesticides
still threaten worker and consumer health, and heavy use of antibiotics
in large feedlots for purposes other than treating animal disease
contributes to the development of drug-resistant bacteria. With adequate
support, federal programs can promote safer livestock practices such as
responsible manure management and help farmers adopt systems that use
fewer antibiotics. Programs can greatly reduce pesticide use by
encouraging such practices as crop rotations, delayed spraying until
pests are observed, and, for some farmers, transition to organic
farming.
- Native Wildlife and Endangered Species: Most imperiled
species rely heavily on private lands. According to the best scientific
estimates, the survival of one-third of the nation's imperiled species
depends on efforts by farmers and ranchers to preserve and enhance
private woodlands, grasslands, and other habitats, conserve water,
reduce farm chemicals, and shade and stabilize streams - efforts that
need public support.
- Enhanced Pasture, Range and Private Forest Lands: Help for
farmers to preserve and enhance rangelands and private forests and
increase rotational grazing of dairy cows and other livestock can
improve water quality and preserve and improve habitat for wildlife.
- Reduce Flood Damages: Support for farmers to restore wetlands
on frequently flooded fields can reduce flood damages downstream as well
as the need for federal disaster aid. According to USDA estimates, its
wetland conservation program ("Swampbuster") prevents the loss of
another 6 to 13 million acres of wetlands otherwise at risk.
- Climate Change: Many of the practices that reduce polluted
runoff or enhance wildlife habitat also help sequester carbon, turn
methane into energy, reduce nitrous oxide, and otherwise reduce gasses
that contribute to global warming. In addition, many of the country's
best wind and solar energy resources are located on farmlands, providing
farmers an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gases and generate income.
Challenges and
Opportunities for Farmers and Farm Communities
Family farmers and ranchers also face serious economic problems. When
federal farm programs began, there were more than six million farms, and
today there are fewer than 2 million. While the rate of decline in total
farms has slowed in the last decade, the number of farmers able to make a
living off their farm continues to decline sharply. Today's farmers face
increasingly concentrated and diminished marketing alternatives, and
record low prices. Farm policies have exacerbated these declines because
they primarily support farmers only to the extent they grow large volumes
of a small number of "program crops."
These limited policies have let farmers down in several ways:
- They provide no direct support to two-thirds of all farmers.
- They fail to reward farmers and ranchers who meet environmental
challenges through diversified farming systems that can be more
sustainable and lighter on the land - including farms that rely on grass
for dairy or livestock, farms that produce a diverse array of products,
and farm business models that focus on qualities other than volume.
- They encourage increased production of a few "program" crops, which
shifts lands from pasture to crops that provide less habitat and use
more fertilizer and pesticides.
- They increase the likelihood of crop surpluses, which drives down
prices for all grain and cotton farmers.
- They direct the bulk of funds to a small number of large farms,
encouraging consolidation of land into fewer hands and failing to help
many family farmers and agricultural communities.
- They provide little to help a new generation get started in
agriculture.
- They invest little in research, food production, and marketing
systems for "sustainable" farming and fail to address increasing
concentration and market access problems.
Farm programs can do more to help farmers and farm communities.
Stewardship incentives can be shaped to support income, not just defray
some of the costs of environmental measures, and can be offered to all
kinds of farmers. Programs can help farmers make the transition to new
promising markets that reward environmental stewardship, to diversify
their production, and to find new marketing opportunities to increase
their share of the food dollar.
There Is An Alternative.Farm Policy Can Work Better for Farmers, Ranchers, Private
Foresters, Rural Communities, Public Health, and the
Environment.
Congress should:
- Provide stewardship payments to farmers and ranchers who reduce
fertilizer and pesticide use, prevent soil erosion, rotate crops, adopt
resource-friendly grazing systems, and manage manure more safely and
effectively as a resource. Such programs should be structured both to
achieve environmental benefits and to support income.
- Purchase easements to preserve farmland, rangelands, and forests
threatened by sprawl.
- Create incentives for farmers to enhance and preserve native
grasslands, restore wetlands, stream buffers, and other sensitive lands
and enhance habitat for native species.
- Target farm payments more toward medium-sized and smaller farms and
support new farmer programs.
- Provide grants to help family farmers and ranchers develop markets
and add value for resource-conserving farm techniques and diverse farm
products, to retain that value in farming communities, and to take steps
to restore competition to the marketplace.
- Provide incentives to manage forests lands in a manner that protects
the forest's ecological integrity, recreational opportunities and
productivity.
- Increase funding for research programs to develop and test new
environmentally oriented farming techniques and systems and marketing
policies to assist family farmers to meet resource conservation and farm
income goals.
- Increase the technical assistance needed to deliver programs and
respond to farmer needs.
- Provide grants and incentives for farmers and rural communities to
identify and utilize available renewable energy resources and help
develop the market for real and verifiable reductions in greenhouse
gasses on farms.
- Maintain and strengthen "Sodbuster" and "Swampbuster" to assure that
farm programs do not encourage plowing up highly erodible land or
draining wetlands.
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