Save the CRP Program!

Help save the CRP program! Copy the letter below, and send your own copy to your congresspeople and Mr. Schafer. The following are exerpts from article in the Baltimore Sun, link here.

The CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) program pays farmers around the mation to not farm certain portions of their land -- often, land that is not particularly productive, is hilly, or already wooded. Environmentalists like it because it protects habitat and reduces pollution, farmers like it because they are paid not to farm what is usually marginal land anyway, and wildlife is the biggest winner, with more acres on which to roam.

In recent years, farmers have been trying to opt out of the program early to increase acreage being farmed because of high corn and grain prices.

Congress and some farmers are pushing U.S. Ag Secretary Ed Schafer to let farmers out of their CRP contracts early so they can plant more acres. Environmental groups are urging the opposite, arguing such a release would be disastrous for the waterways.

Here's the full text of their letter to Schafer:

July 9, 2008

The Honorable Ed Schafer
Secretary of Agriculture
U.S. Department of Agriculture
1400 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20250

Dear Secretary Schafer:

We strongly urge you to reject proposals to allow the penalty-free early release of land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Early release of even a modest number of acres from CRP would waste the money American taxpayers have invested in restoring those lands to grassland or other cover and would eliminate the benefits to soil, water, wildlife and the public that the lands provide. A penalty-free early release of the magnitude you are considering – millions of acres – would deliver a devastating blow to the nation’s soil, water, and wildlife habitat, and significantly increase global warming. The resulting damages could cost taxpayers substantially.

The oldest of the farm bill’s voluntary conservation incentives programs, CRP is a federal program designed to reward farmers who take fragile land out of production and plant grasses or trees or restore wetlands on the land in exchange for rental payments and federal cost-share payments. Since its creation in 1985, CRP has been responsible for reducing hundreds of millions of tons of erosion each year, reducing pollution in our nation’s waterways. CRP is also an important reservoir for wildlife, and has had significant benefits for populations of ducks, grassland birds, and other species. Keeping land in CRP is also critical in the fight against global warming. Allowing millions of acres out of CRP prior to the end of the contract period would quickly erase many of the gains that have been made with CRP and will likely create new problems.

Because most CRP lands are marginal for cropping, even if all CRP acres were brought back into commodity production, the impact on aggregate commodity supplies and prices would be modest. On the other hand, the impacts to soil, water, wildlife, the public, and the recreational industry that has developed around wildlife such as pheasants and waterfowl produced on these lands would be substantial. We urge you to protect the taxpayers’ investment in soil quality, water quality, and wildlife habitat and not allow landowners to leave CRP contracts early without fully reimbursing the Treasury for the taxpayer-funded investment in those lands.

Sincerely,

Environmental Defense Fund
The Minnesota Project
Sierra Club
Center for Native Ecosystems
National Wildlife Federation
National Audubon Society
Partners for Sustainable Pollination
Environmental Working Group
Pollinator Partnership
Defenders of Wildlife
American Farmland Trust
World Wildlife Fund
American Rivers
Sustainable Agriculture Coalition
American Bee Keeping Federation