Conservation Security Program should be fully funded

The Pilot-Independent

Thursday, January 11, 2007

http://www.walkermn.com/placed/index.php?sect_rank=6&story_id=229270

Conservation Security Program should be fully funded

by Babe Winkelman

Bill Gorman was one of several agricultural producers from the Midwest who traveled to Washington D.C. recently to bend the ears of Congressional lawmakers who will play an instrumental role in crafting the next federal farm bill.

Gorman, who lives in southeastern Minnesota, had a simple message: We need a policy change, and we need it now.

"The most interesting meetings were with the offices of the new Congressional ag chairs —Minnesota Congressman Collin Peterson and Sen. Tom Harkin from Iowa," said Gorman, an organic dairy farmer who grazes cattle on roughly 160 acres of pasture land — land, he says, that's teeming with flora and fauna.

"In those meetings we talked about the importance of a bigger Conservation Security Program, ideas to help new and beginning farmers and commodity reform proposals."

Historically speaking, farm bill conservation programs have either paid cost-share payments to farmers to fix environmental problems or rental payments to retire sensitive cropland (see the Conservation Reserve Program, the nation's workhorse natural-resource program).

But the Conservation Security Program (CSP) is different. Enacted in the 2002 farm bill, the CSP compensates farmers who are already doing a good job of protecting and maintaining natural resources on their working agricultural lands. The program rewards those who are farming "clean and green," as many say, with annual payments and increasing financial incentives that are intended to keep producers farming in a way that benefits soil, water, air and wildlife habitat.

More specifically, the program, which has a three-tier compensation structure and is administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service (the conservation arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture), would give farmers a base payment, (similar to a rental payment, you could argue), if they solve a critical natural-resource problem on their farm. The payments get progressively larger as a farm goes from one tier to another in the program.

The idea is to keep producers working their lands while being active stewards of their natural resources. In other words, it pays conservation-minded farmers for being conservation-minded farmers. It also can help keep smaller family farms viable and profitable.

"It's a good program," said Gorman. "We just need to see that it gets adequate funding in the next farm bill."

All and all, the conservation practices utilized in the CSP — from no-till farming to planting vegetative buffer strips in riparian areas to implementing rotational grazing systems, among many, many others — help keep rivers and streams free of sediment and farm chemicals (particularly nitrogen fertilizer and atrazine, a common corn herbicide) and, in many instances, provide habitat for myriad wildlife species: pheasants, deer, song birds, turkeys and more.

Here's the catch: While the CSP has garnered widespread attention in farming circles nationwide (many farmers and ranchers love the program because, at least in theory, it can be adapted to fit the individual needs of their farming operations, a real bonus), Congress has raided the CSP cookie jar (funding) repeatedly since its passage in 2002. As a result, the program has only been offered in 300 watersheds across the country, far less than some lawmakers envisioned.

The current federal farm bill expires in September 2007. Beginning in January, Sen. Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, will take over as the chairperson of the Senate Agricultural Committee.

That's good news for farmers and ranchers who covet the CSP: Harkin is its chief architect and staunchest supporter. In fact, he's on record as saying that he will "fully fund" the CSP in the next farm bill. We'll see.

For his part, Gorman wants farm policy and land and water stewardship to work hand in hand, for the betterment of the public good. He thinks the CSP model strikes the right note.

"We have to get out of the business of subsidizing only a few crops like corn and soybeans, because the current system is really only benefiting corporate agriculture," said Gorman, who is not enrolled in the CSP because he does not live in a qualifying watershed. "I think the public is growing tired of paying for intensive farming that damages the environment. There's no reason that clean streams and agriculture have to be on the opposite ends of the spectrum. I'd like to see conservation become the lead horse. I know if I were enrolled I could do much more to improve my land."

An occasional birder and deer hunter, Gorman, who gave up conventional row-crop farming out of environmental concerns, started his livestock grazing system in the early 1990s and has been refining it every since. He's part of a local cooperative and, he says, has found a niche for his organic dairy products and beef.

"I also have more time on my hands because I’m not constantly working the land and pumping it full of chemicals," said Gorman. "Sometimes it's nice to sit back and see all the wildlife that shows up. That's a big perk."

Babe Winkelman is a nationally known outdoorsman who has been teaching people to fish and hunt for 25 years. Watch his award-winning "Good Fishing" television show on WGN-TV, Fox Sports Net, The Men's Channel, Great American Country Network and The Sportsman's Channel. Visit www.winkelman.com for air times.

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