Contact: Mark Schultz, LSP Policy Program Director, 612-722-6377
Dave Serfling, farmer, LSP Federal Farm Policy Committee, 507-765-2797
Dan Specht, farmer, LSP Federal Farm Policy Committee, 563-873-3873
Bill Gorman, farmer, LSP Federal Farm Policy Committee, 651-258-4127
Dan French, farmer, LSP Federal Farm Policy Committee, 507-635-5619
Jeff Klinge, farmer, LSP Federal Farm Policy Committee, 563-536-2314

6/10/04
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The USDA’s announcement this week that sign-up for the long-awaited Conservation Security Program (CSP) will begin July 6 is welcome news, but the program being implemented is highly flawed, said Land Stewardship Project Policy Program Director Mark Schultz.

Farmers in 18 watersheds nationwide—including watersheds in south-central Minnesota, northwestern Wisconsin and southwestern Iowa—may be eligible for the program, depending on how they meet the criteria and categories set by the USDA. Sign-up will run until July 30.

“Yesterday’s announcement finally gets CSP out of the corridors of USDA and open for sign-up in at least a few agricultural areas,” said Schultz. “Unfortunately, not only is the rule nearly a year and a half late, but the Bush Administration has evidently chosen to prevent most farmers from participating in the program with a restricted implementation plan and low payment rates. Our members are not happy with how far from the original law this program has strayed.”

The CSP was passed by Congress in the 2002 Farm Bill as a comprehensive, nationwide program on a par with federal farm commodity programs. But the USDA’s plan limits the program to a few local watersheds each year. Rather than the continuous sign-up envisioned by the original law, the Bush Administration’s plan would give farmers the chance to enroll in the program at best once every eight years. The right of the farmer to renew CSP contracts and stay in the environmental program over the long-term, which is guaranteed in the 2002 law, is effectively voided by the Administration’s rule.

The interim final rule somewhat improves the CSP payment rates that were proposed in USDA’s draft rule, which was released for public comment in January. Rather than reducing the statutory base payments rates by 90 percent, as was outlined in the proposed rule, the interim final rule reduces the rates by 75 percent, 50 percent and 25 percent for Tier I, II and III CSP participants respectively. At the same time, however, the interim final rule reduces CSP cost share payments from up to 75 percent—as required by law and included in the proposed rule—to not more than 50 percent.

“A record-setting 14,000 farmers, conservationists, and farm and environmental organizations commented on the USDA’s proposed rule early this spring, nearly unanimously calling for CSP to be implemented as Congress legislated it to be—reaching into every county of the country and accessible to all farmers practicing effective conservation,” said Schultz. “A few of the recommendations were heard, for which we want to commend hard-working professionals in the Natural Resources Conservation Service at USDA. But overall, the Bush Administration continues to run farm programs through the White House Office of Management and Budget, which apparently cares nothing for conservation-minded farmers or the stewardship of our nation’s land and waters.”

LSP was an early proponent of the Conservation Security Program, and worked to develop the policy, build support for it, and provide input into the implementation process, said Schultz. LSP is willing to help promote CSP by tapping into the hundreds of producers the organization has worked closely with who live in the selected watersheds, he added. LSP will contact those producers directly, informing them of the process of program sign-up and urging them to push for good uses for the program.

“Maybe by working through the grassroots and through the Natural Resources Conservation Service at the local and state level, we’ll shape this program into something of real worth to America,” said Schultz. “Despite the Administration’s attempts to strangle it, this can still be a program that helps protect our precious soil and water resources on working farms.”

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NOTE: The CSP Interim Final Rule has been posted at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/farmbill/2002/rules/csp060904.html

For more information on CSP, visit http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_csp.html