Contact: Dave Serfling, farmer, Preston, Minn., 507-765-2797
Greg Koether, farmer, McGregor, Iowa, 563-873-3385
Bill Gorman, farmer, Goodhue, Minn., 651-258-4127
Dan Specht, farmer, McGregor, Iowa, 563-873-3873
Jeff Klinge, farmer, Farmersburg, Iowa, 563-536-231
Mark Schultz, LSP staff, 612-722-6377

1/23/04
MINNEAPOLIS – Farmers in Minnesota and Iowa applauded Congress and called on USDA to rewrite the Bush Administration’s draft rules for the Conservation Security Program (CSP) today, following yesterday’s passage of the 2004 Omnibus Appropriations bill by the U.S. Senate, which provides full funding to the CSP. The USDA has proposed in its draft rules released in December to severely limit enrollment and payments to farmers under the program. Farmers are demanding that the rules stay true to the law originally passed by Congress.

“There is no reason to restrict access to the CSP like USDA has proposed,” said Dave Serfling, who farms in Minnesota’s Fillmore County and is a member of the Land Stewardship Project’s Federal Farm Policy Committee. “CSP was passed in the 2002 Farm Bill as a nationwide conservation program available to all farmers practicing effective conservation. Congress has funded it appropriately. The USDA needs to issue a supplement to the rules right away so farmers, ranchers and others will have an opportunity to comment on what USDA is considering for the final rules.”

A supplement to the rules would amend the proposed rules to provide further guidance as to how the agency will implement CSP.

The Omnibus Appropriations bill has been in the works since last fall, with full funding for CSP agreed to by the Congressional Conference Committee in November. Nonetheless, USDA released a draft rule in December that did not treat CSP as an uncapped funding program, as it was in the Farm Bill and as it is in the Omnibus Appropriations bill. Instead, the agency created major obstacles to program sign-up and diminished the conservation security payments severely. A public comment period on USDA’s proposed rules is currently underway, and ends March 2.

“They need to get it right this time – reward the best, and motivate the rest,” said Greg Koether, who farms in northeast Iowa’s Clayton County and also serves on LSP’s Federal Farm Policy Committee.

“That means CSP needs to recognize and provide payments for existing conservation benefits being delivered by farmers right now, through such sustainable farming systems as rotational grazing and resource-conserving crop rotations. It’s in the law, the money has been appropriated —put it in the rules.”

U.S. Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR), original authors of the CSP, applauded the restoration of funding and called on the USDA to implement the law properly.

“USDA should not seek to reverse the restoration of CSP funding by unilaterally and arbitrarily restricting enrollment and funding for this promising new program,” said Harkin and Smith in a statement released Thursday. “Any supplement or final rule must be true to the CSP as signed into law—a national program that is open to any farmer or rancher who meets its substantial conservation standards.”

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EDITORS: For more information on CSP, go to
http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_csp.html.