What’s at Stake? Key Reforms Will Help More Farmers and the Environment

REFORM #1 – Fund Farmland Conservation Programs at $4.3 Billion a Year to Help Farmers and Ranchers in All States

By including $4.3 billion on average each year for farmland conservation programs, the Senate Farm Bill finally recognizes that farmers and ranchers can help improve water quality, stop sprawl and enhance wildlife habitat. Over the last decade, thousands of farmers have had their applications to participate in farmland conservation programs rejected because of a lack of funding. For many farmers and ranchers, the conservation programs are their only access to farm program funding. Unfortunately, the House version of the Farm Bill would leave most of these farmers waiting in line by spending only $3.1 billion per year on these programs.

This Excel spreadsheet shows how much funding each program would receive under the House and Senate bills: PC version | Mac version

However, it’s not just the money that matters, the bill language establishes new and improved programs to maximize conservation on retired and working farmland while providing farmers with income assistance, cost-share and bonus payments. Working in tandem, these programs will help farmers save their farmland from sprawl, ranchland from invasive species, cut erosion and runoff into waterways and drinking water sources (wells), reduce wind erosion and provide wildlife habitat.

Funding the conservation programs at $4.3 billion per year is our best chance to address this country’s most pressing environmental challenges. Each year, more than 1.9 billion tons of soil is lost to erosion, polluting rivers and streams across the country. Two million acres of our best farmland is lost to sprawling development. More than 145 million acres of rangeland are seriously threatened. Agriculture is now considered the leading source of pollution by state water agencies. To learn more about environmental issues on private lands, visit “ Food for Thought” from the Environmental Defense Fund.

Related link: Key Farmland Conservation Programs

REFORM #2 – Adopt New Caps on Payments to Large Agribusiness Will Focus Subsidies on Small and Medium Family Farmers

The Senate overwhelmingly adopted subsidy payment limits to ensure that large agribusinesses stop getting enormous payments that help drive their smaller neighbors out of business. These limits will also help stop the vicious cycle of over-producing that drives down market prices and hurts small farms. These measures will also limit the participation in crop subsidy programs by Fortune 500 corporations and wealthy non-farmers. For individual farmers, the amendment would limit payments to $225,000 or, if married, $275,000. In contrast, the House-passed bill allows individual farmers to maximize up to $275,000 with multiple entities up to $550,000, with no limitation or restrictions on CCC certificate benefits, Fortune 500 companies, or absentee landlords. Representatives Doug Bereuter (R-NE) and Earl Pomeroy (D-ND) are leading the charge in the House to support this key reform during the final negotiations.

REFORM #3 – Stop Incentives to Farmers to Open New Land to Crop Production

The Senate adopted the Durbin amendment that curtails incentives created by farm program payments to cultivate new lands and increase production beyond levels supported by the market. Farm program payments, designed to serve as a safety net for the nation’s commodity producers, are giving farmers incentives to maintain and increase production at levels not supported by the market. According to USDA analysis, roughly 23 million acres of range and pastureland were converted to row crops between 1982 and 1997. These conversions contribute to crop surpluses, low prices and higher government payments, as well as significant declines in grassland ecosystems and many wildlife species that depend upon them.

REFORM #4 – Don’t Use EQIP Funds to Help Large Livestock Producers Expand

The Senate adopted safeguards to ensure that funds from the USDA’s main water quality protection program (Environmental Quality Incentives Program -- EQIP) are not used for the expansion of large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs.) The Senate and House Farm Bills remove the animal unit eligibility cap for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, opening the program to CAFOs of over 1,000 animal units. Our nation’s agricultural policy should help family farmers and encourage sustainable agriculture and should not provide incentives for further concentration of livestock into ever-larger factory farms. The new safeguards will help prevent EQIP from becoming a massive giveaway to the nation’s largest industrial animal factories.

Related links:

• Key farm policy reforms brewing in Congress
• The members negotiating the final farm bill
• Key farmland conservation programs