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Group Disappointed
by CRP Sign-up

Guidelines fail to target environmentally sensitive areas, retire too much productive farmland.


5/22/97: Washington, D.C. -- The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (SAC) responded cautiously today to USDA's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) sign-up announcement. The Midwest-based coalition of farm and environmental groups said that this round of CRP enrollments would retire too much farmland before the department had adequate guidelines in place to target sign-ups to the most environmentally sensitive acres.

The Coalition previously argued for accepting no more than the best half of all proposals submitted for this 15th CRP sign-up, or about 12-13 million acres, based on environmental objectives and cost effectiveness.

Ferd Hoefner, SAC Washington Representative, said, "We urged greater restraint for several reasons. Unfortunately, the Department gave in to pressure to open the CRP sign up to a significant amount of land that can be farmed safely with good conservation practices.

"Just as troubling, offers to enroll were judged based on a faulty 'Environmental Benefits Index,' (EBI) and inadequate measures were taken to encourage competition on rental payments, so we have to wonder whether the taxpayers are getting their money's worth in this sign-up," Hoefner added.

"We won't know until we see details on the land just accepted into CRP, but I'm very concerned that the department may end up retiring more perfectly good farmland. Now that this enrollment has been announced, the USDA should take a breather before the next sign-up to let the department's CRP environmental targeting catch up with its own laudable rhetoric," Hoefner suggested.

The Coalition has been active for many years in promoting enrollment of high priority conservation practices in CRP, including contour buffer strips, grass waterways, wetland buffers, and filterstrips along streams. These practices are now part of the continuous sign-up for CRP, also known as the "buffer initiative." In addition to its strong support of enrolling these high-priority acres, the Coalition has urged the Department to undertake a substantial number of competitive, project-based enrollments to enhance conservation benefits.

"One of the best things USDA could do to improve the environmental performance of the CRP would be to immediately announce an enrollment goal of at least 8 million acres for the continuous sign-up and issue a request for proposals for project-based enrollments from states and localities," Hoefner concluded.

The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition represents a group of twelve nonprofit, farm, food, environmental, and rural organizations, which advocate public policies supporting the long-term economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources and rural communities.

Source: From a news release by the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.

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