WASHINGTON,
May 16 - Political and market forces could combine to create a “perfect storm”
of elements that contribute to a new dust bowl in parts of the Great Plains, in the view of former USDA Economic
Research Service Administrator Katherine (Kitty) Smith.
Three principal elements are an increase in tillage of
cropland to combat herbicide-resistant weeds, the economic incentives of high market
prices for major program crops and the likely cutback in USDA conservation
program payments to farmers after budget cuts in the next farm bill, said
Smith, now chief economist for American Farmland Trust.
Her assessment was broadly endorsed by three other conservation-oriented
panelists at CropLife America’s 2012 national policy conference Wednesday
morning at the Newseum.
Molly Jahn, former USDA under secretary for research and
one-time Wisconsin agriculture dean, said that
Smith’s “perfect storm” could be hastened by the end of conservation
cross-compliance - as a requirement for farm program benefits - as this year’s
farm bill shifts from direct payments to reliance on crop insurance for a farm
“safety net.”
Sarah Hopper, agricultural policy director for the
Environmental Defense Fund, said that even under current policies there was
research to conclude that some farmers in the semi-arid northern plains states
were growing crops on marginal lands better suited for cow-calf operations.
Panelists did not disagree with the assessment by Bruce
Knight, the former under secretary of agriculture for natural resources and
environment, that the farm bill likely would not require adherence to
conservation practices to be eligible for subsidized crop insurance. “The farm
organizations don’t want it, the crop insurance companies don’t want it, and
frankly they have out-lobbied those” who advocate cross-compliance.
Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, one
of the best-known proponents of cross compliance, said it was not merely a
question of what crop insurance companies and farm organizations proposed but
“a lack of political courage to stand up to them and say that taxpayers want a quid pro quo - something in return for
the $9 billion or so we’re giving them.”
He said that USDA during the Reagan Administration did stand
up to opponents of cross-compliance. USDA could do so today, he said, “but
President Obama has not done so.”
CropLife’s conference kicked off by showing excerpts of a
new public television documentary, “The Dust Bowl,” produced by Ken Burns and
Dayton Duncan, to be broadcast in November. “We don’t know, we can only assume,
that wise conservation practices will continue,” Duncan said. “I hope that advice from the
past will be something that will guide the right decisions.”
Congressman Steve King is an outspoken conservative member of the House Agriculture Committee. In this week's Open Mic, the Iowa Republican shares his observations about the farm bill that the committee wrote last week. King put through an egg amendment that may keep states from imposing standards that restrict commerce with other states. He also wants to cut the cost of SNAP and reduce other expenditures as well. King,
who is in line to be chairman when the next farm bill comes up in 2018, also discusses how committee membership has changed.
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