Tribune — Surveying undulating grasslands that disappear into the western Kansas horizon, retired farmer Joe Govert pointed out parcel after parcel no longer enrolled in a federal program that pays property owners not to farm environmentally sensitive land.
The arid, wind-swept ground stripped of topsoil by Dust Bowl storms has lain undisturbed beneath a protective cover of native grasses that took two decades to re-establish under the Conservation Reserve Program. But millions of those acres are being plowed again after the 2008 Farm Bill capped the program at 32 million acres.
More than 3.4 million acres nationwide were taken out of the program in September when the owners’ contracts expired. Most of them were in Texas, Colorado and Kansas, but hundreds of thousands of acres came out in Montana and the Dakotas.
The environmental and economic repercussions could extend beyond the nation’s Heartland with a greater risk of new dust storms, soil erosion and water pollution. Farmers worry more grain will mean lower commodity crop prices.
CRP pays landowners not to farm easily eroded land, while splitting with them the cost of establishing vegetative cover. The goal is to reduce soil erosion and sedimentation in streams and lakes, improve water quality and establish wildlife habitat.
The program has created millions of acres of habitat for quail, pheasant, prairie chickens and other wildlife and established filter strips and forested buffers to protect streams, lakes and rivers from sedimentation and agricultural runoff.
In return, farmers receive annual rental payments on 10-, 15- and 20-year contracts. With payments averaging $51 per acre per year, the program cost about $2 billion in fiscal year 2008.
Govert, 85, put all his land — about 750 acres — in the program in 1987 and got rid of his farm equipment. His contracts expired last month and for the most part cannot be extended.
With the government checks ending and property taxes and other bills to pay, Govert said he has little choice but to break up the ground to farm again — or sell it to someone who will.
“This stuff has roots,” he said as he looked across a field near the Colorado state line. “It is well established. This is what hurts. It took years to get it established.”
But much of the land can be farmed again without harming the environment, said Adrian Polansky, director of the Farm Service Agency overseeing CRP in Kansas. Modern agricultural practices, such as no-till farming, curb soil erosion. CRP also gives a higher priority for re-enrolling the most environmentally sensitive acres.
Polansky also noted the program was more about the economy than the environment when Congress authorized it amid the farm crisis in 1985.
“We had producers, landowners, banks, suppliers that were in dire financial straits,” said Polansky, himself a third-generation farmer. “So in those early years ... It was in a sense an economic rescue-type program to stabilize land prices.”
Comments
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tumbilweed (anonymous) says…
Read "The Worst Hard Time" by Egan.
This sounds like the 1930's all over again.
Money makes people do really, really stupid things.
bluerose (anonymous) says…
well, everyone knows the government needs more ...
corn syrup.
waving grasses, small wildlife and natural beauty won't make money for them...
sigh...
beerguy (anonymous) says…
How is no-till farming better for the environment? You poison all the weeds with chemicals instead of simply tilling them over, sounds to me like its better for the chemical industry, not environment.
SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
Let me get this straight. Our government pays Mr. Govert $51 per acre per year for his 750 acres.
That's $38,250 of other people's money for Mr. Govert to do nothing. Nothing.
storm (anonymous) says…
CRP = Welfare called by a different name.
It will always be a better investment to direct money to custodians raising small children instead of custodians who own land.
Wallythewalrus (anonymous) says…
Setting the Record Straight: I agree with your statement. We all know why farmers' ball caps,the bill of the cap, are in the shape of a mial box. Looking for those subsidy checks. New farming proceedures are good for the environment. And we need to lower are national debt or change the numbers to pay for other pet projects of the government.
I say it is about time that those in Washington who pay themselves with farm subsidy stop. And what about those large coporate farms getting money for growing nothing?
sturgen (anonymous) says…
No till farming has nothing to do with spraying more weeds. It uses equipment made to drill through the old material rather than having to use fuel and time to prepare the fields. With the higher Organic matter being deposited into the soil along comes a more diverse "living" soil which needs less chemicals and can per square foot absorb ten times the amount of water compared to a chemical laden matter that exists on most feilds today. This area happens to be on top of the largest aquifer in the country so they are not being paid to do nothing. They are being paid to preserve the quality and level of water which otherwise would be contaminated with chemicals running off into our streams then the ocean. These unplowed areas absorb and "recharge" this area rather than depleate and dessicate by growing corn in a place where corn has no business being grown. Thusly they are being paid to make an effort to help preserve what was refered to when first explored as "the Garden of Eden". This area has gone from the most fertile and diverse, to a dust laden no man's land, and is in the process of making the return. Let it happen.
gccs14r (anonymous) says…
The program was changed during W's term. It's only now that the contracts are expiring. It's too bad that the acreage cap hasn't yet been removed. If all that land is plowed even once, it'll be several more decades before the land gets back to where it is today.
shorttrees (anonymous) says…
CRP is NOT welfare. Big difference between the feds just giving money and the feds renting the land on a contract of 10/15/20 years and then paying the farmer to seed it into natural plants for the term of the lease. The farmer gets yearly lease payments, not welfare. When the lease contract runs out the farmer is free to lease it out again (like to the feds if it's "environmentally sensitive land") or to farm it themself, or to sell the land.
Typical city people comments.
SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
shorttrees,
Sounds great for the farmer and horrible for the taxpayer.
Tell you what - The federal government is welcome to "rent" my backyard for $51 per acre. They can pay me "to seed it into natural plants for the term of the lease." And they're welcome to pay me other people's money for "10/15/20 years."
quimby (anonymous) says…
STRS - be happy to do that if your property holds benefits/ risks similar to the land covered in this program. Why is everything with you always about the taxpayer and the other guy? We're all taxpayers. In fact, I'm a taxpayer and am more than cool with this program.
SettingTheRecordStraight (anonymous) says…
quimby,
But no one's forcing farmers to own property that "holds benefits/risks similar to the land covered in this program." Let them sell their land if its so risky.
And $51 of guaranteed income per year (adjusted for upward every year for inflation) for 20 years for doing nothing is a sweetheart deal for the land owners and a sucker deal for the taxpayers.
To answer your other question, I'm not cool with this program, and no one should force my family to pay for government giveaways that are not constitutionally permissible. The framers of our Constitution who believed in limited, restrained government would be horrified by the level of taxation our government burdens us with. Instead of more and more government outlays, politicians should focus only on that which private industry and the individual cannot provide for themselves: infrastructure, military, courts, a legislature, fire, police, anti-terrorism initiatives and a few other things.
gccs14r (anonymous) says…
They're not doing nothing. They're restoring the land to a native state to help preserve the farming viability of the surrounding land. That's not easy work. As for the $51 per acre per year, that's not a lot. My 6,000 square foot lot would get $7.02 per year, for example. I'm not going to go to the trouble of restoring it to its native state for 7 bucks. Besides, the City wouldn't let me. Something about weeds and snakes.
storm (anonymous) says…
Welfare mothers and fathers aren't doing nothing. They're raising children to be responsible citizens. That's not easy work. There is an expiration date for the time that they are on welfare just as a contract to put land in the CRP has an expiration date. CRP is welfare.
LarryNative (anonymous) says…
Hopefully welfare parents are teaching their kids not to say things like "aren't doing nothing".