In 1943, Hugh Hammond Bennett, the father of the modern soil
conservation movement, wrote,
“Conservation farming put first things first by attending to the needs of the
soil—by seeing to it that the starting-off place, the base, is put into sound
health and kept that way. Any other approach, no matter what it may be, always
has and always must lead eventually to agricultural disaster.”
What emerged from Bennett’s writings were federal programs
designed to protect the health of America’s farmland. Their goal was to keep
soil healthy and ensure that agriculture was economically sound and
environmentally beneficial.
Since Bennett’s time, a variety of approaches to soil and
water conservation have resulted in better stewardship of both land and water
resources associated with farming. One of the most successful is conservation
compliance.
With conservation compliance, farmers apply basic
conservation practices to attend to the needs of the soil and wetlands in
exchange for federal assistance. As a result, soil is protected from erosion,
important wetlands are preserved and taxpayers' investments are protected
through the combination of sound agricultural and conservation policy.
It is an approach that has produced results.
Throughout its 25-year history, conservation compliance has annually reduced soil erosion by 295 million tons. To put it another way, that is enough soil to cover the entire area of the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol Building with 1,100 feet of soil every year.
Conservation compliance keeps soil in the field where it
belongs and out of our rivers and streams.
It also keeps farmers productive.
It is undeniable that the farm safety net is shifting away
from direct subsidies toward a risk-based system in which federal crop
insurance is the base.
With the removal of direct payments from the farm safety net
and associated conservation measures, we risk taking a large step backward from
the progress made in protecting our nation’s fragile soils and wetlands.
Fortunately, we can maintain these conservation benefits
well into the future by providing a sound farm and natural resource safety net
by re-linking conservation compliance and crop insurance.
Attaching conservation compliance to crop insurance premium
assistance will continue the public benefits of protecting fragile soils and
wetlands in exchange for a taxpayer supported federal crop insurance program.
Conservation compliance is a common-sense crop insurance
reform measure that has bipartisan support in the House and Senate, and the
support of farm, conservation and crop insurance groups alike.
American Farmland Trust and many other partners were
successful in securing bipartisan support in the Senate-passed Farm Bill to
include conservation compliance as part of the federal crop insurance
program. We didn’t have the same success
in the House.
As House and Senate negotiators iron out differences in
their two versions of the bill, conservation compliance is one of the major
differences to be worked out.
If Hugh Hammond Bennett were here today, he would see how
his ideas have helped improve soil health. That happened because of deliberate
and decisive actions taken by policymakers over the years to conserve healthy
soil on America’s farms.
It is imperative that the House and Senate Farm Bill
conferees continue that tradition of stewardship well into the future by seeing
to it the starting-off place is at the base, our nation’s soil and wetlands,
and by re-linking conservation compliance to federal crop insurance assistance.
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