Bush Ag budget slashes
key conservation programs
Maintains budget-busting subsidies for commodity production

Contact: Dave Serfling, LSP spokesperson and farmer, 507-765-2797,
Dan Specht, LSP spokesperson and farmer, 563-873-3873,
Mark Schultz, LSP staff, 612-722-6377

2/4/03
PRESTON, Minn.—The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) today strongly criticized the Bush Administration's budget requests for fiscal year 2004, released yesterday, which included the proposed USDA budget.

"This budget puts no brakes on subsidies to the biggest operators to expand production and get paid by taxpayers for tearing up the land, while it cuts to shreds the only program that would stop penalizing farmers who are practicing good land stewardship," said Dave Serfling, an LSP member who farms near Preston, Minn. Serfling testified in Washington, D.C., on behalf of LSP during the Farm Bill debate (www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/newsr_010731.html). "The Bush Administration budget for agriculture ought to be rejected by Congress, and programs such as the Conservation Security Program maintained with full funding, as was passed in the 2002 Farm Bill."

In the USDA budget, the Administration proposes that Congress re-open the recently signed Farm Bill to cap the Conservation Security Program (CSP) at $2 billion over the next 10 years. With a cap, the program would be changed from the first-ever conservation entitlement program available to all farmers who qualify and apply, on a par with commodity support programs, to a program with limited enrollment, preferential bidding systems, and waiting lists.

The Bush Administration also drastically cut programs aimed at value-added rural development, sustainable agriculture research, and wetlands preservation and restoration. Meanwhile, the Administration left intact commodity program payments (estimated at $12.6 billion for 2004) and a huge increase in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP - funded at $1 billion for 2004), maintaining a nine-fold increase in what an individual farm operator can receive from EQIP, from $50,000 to $450,000.

"Apparently, the Administration has decided it doesn't like conservation and rural development that is based on family farms," said Dan Specht, an LSP member who farms near McGregor, Iowa. Specht also testified in Washington during the Farm Bill debate (www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/newsr_010301.html). "In making cuts, they should start with payment limitations on commodity programs and EQIP - huge billion-dollar budgets that send money flowing to the largest operations in obscene amounts regardless of need, often for production practices that hurt, not help, the environment. Now's the time for people to call Congress and tell them to reject the Administration's attempt to rewrite the Farm Bill through the budget."

Founded in 1982, The Land Stewardship Project is a membership-based nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting family farming, fostering an ethic of stewardship for farmland, and promoting sustainable agriculture. For more information on the Conservation Security Program and other farm policy issues, go to www.landstewardshipproject.org, or call 612-722-6377.

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