Wild Blog

Conserved Lands May Be Plowed Over For Crops
Friday, July 18, 2008

contributed by Matt Kirby

The Bush administration is considering taking lands that have been set aside as part of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and turning them into farmland. This is an ill-conceived plan to bring down grain prices, never mind that it will undermine one of the few beneficial farm subsidies. Farmers are already under economic pressure to transition these lands to crop production due to rising prices. Now the administration is giving the farmers even more reason to do so by letting them out of the CRP without penalty. With these kinds of monetary incentives, what’s an economically rational model of a human being to do?

The Conservation Reserve Program began in 1985 primarily as a means to prevent soil erosion and protect ground and surface waters. It basically pays farmers an annual subsidy to keep their lands out of production for 10-15 years and instead plant shrubs, grasses, and tree cover. The program is hugely successful with approximately 34 million acres of previously farmed land now protecting the water, soil, and wildlife of the Great Plains. It can be credited as one of the reasons we have not seen another Dust Bowl despite droughts approaching the severity of those seen in the 1930s.

The program has brought back birds, prevented soil erosion, and kept waterways clean. Now Bush wants to allow farmers to break their contracts and put their lands back into production without paying back those subsidies. Sounds like a sound economic policy to me. Maybe he should reconsider the food to fuel mandate as a means to reign in soaring food prices instead of attacking yet another conservation measure. Let the CRP alone. It’s a sound policy that has managed to bring back a faint glimmer of the former grandeur of the grasslands of the Great Plains.

For more information:

NPR story

Des Moines Register

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