As the next farm bill moves into
final form, we need to be sure we’ve done our best to balance competing
priorities and help farmers and ranchers be the best possible stewards of their
land. That means developing farm policy
that helps manage risk without reducing potential losses to the point where we
promote planting crops on land better left in grass.
At the same time, we must maintain
conservation compliance for wetlands and highly erodible land at the minimum
levels of stewardship currently required by the “sodbuster” and “swampbuster”
provisions from the 1985 farm bill. Since
these conservation floors were originally tied to commodity support programs
now being reformed or eliminated, we need to forge links to another critical
program—preferably crop insurance.
But there’s more involved in
balance than simply finding an appropriate way to maintain minimum conservation
compliance. We also need to ensure that
farm policy does not wind up promoting planting crops at the expense of working
grasslands or favor crop production over livestock production. Farmers and ranchers own and/or manage their
land, but we want their focus to be producing for the marketplace with a view
toward making a profit there rather than using crop insurance as a crutch that
supports plantings on land that would otherwise be more profitable maintained
as grassland.
We need to preserve the nation’s working
grasslands. Moreover, we need to avoid
creating a crop insurance program so generous that producers perceive that it
is less risky to farm ground that’s covered by crop insurance than to run
cattle on the same land.
As a rancher, I am disturbed by
what I see happening in my neighborhood.
Large pasture units—160, 320 or 640-acre pastures—are being rocked,
broke and farmed up hill and down, through the wetlands and waterways. Unfortunately, there are a few operators and
unaware landlords with no conservation ethic.
But we don’t need farm policy to encourage or support their
behavior. To keep grass in place, it
must be profitable as grazing land. If
the short-term return on investment is higher for planting crops or the
risk-reward is lower, grass and wetlands will be converted to farm ground.
Striking a balance is a tough
job, and I commend our Senators and Representatives on the hard work and
bipartisan spirit involved in putting together this year’s farm bill. But I don’t think the job is finished
yet. Conversion of grassland to farm
ground is one of the issues that’s really not been aired much or considered
fully. Accurate numbers that track the
rate of conversion are scarce. I hope we
see more discussion and some program refinements related to these issues before
the final votes are counted.
Toward this end, we need to be
sure that our crop insurance policies don’t make farming so much less risky
than ranching that bankers encourage producers to convert rangeland to
cornfields. That means we need long-term
easement programs to protect grassland and annual rental options under the
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for working grasslands that are large,
robust and targeted to the areas of the country that are facing the greatest grassland
conversions. We also need conservation
programs, such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the
Conservation Stewardship Program, to place priority on conserving and improving
the productivity of grassland.
As acreage in CRP declines, we
need to be working on transition programs to help ensure that idled land
returns to its highest and best use—whether that’s cropping or grazing. A robust Transition Incentives Program that
matches CRP land owners with beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers and
ranchers is a step in the right direction.
The 2012 Farm Bill offers not
only a golden opportunity to realign farm programs with 21st Century
priorities of producing to feed the world but also to strike the best possible
balance between farming and ranching. We
need to structure our conservation programs as well as our risk management
programs toward these goals.
About the author: Bruce I.
Knight, Principal, Strategic Conservation Solutions, was the Under Secretary
for Marketing and Regulatory Programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) from 2006 to 2009. From 2002 to 2006, Knight served as Chief of Natural
Resources Conservation Service. The South Dakota native worked on Capitol Hill
for Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, Rep. Fred Grandy, Iowa, and Sen. James
Abdnor, South Dakota. In addition, Knight served as vice president for public
policy for the National Corn Growers Association and also worked for the
National Association of Wheat Growers. A third-generation rancher and farmer
and lifelong conservationist, Knight operates a diversified grain and cattle
operation using no-till and rest rotation grazing systems.
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