Emergency CRP Grazing

[hunter94]

Drought opens CRP grazing for area counties

Published on -6/5/2011, 5:32 PM

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By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

Ellis, Graham and Trego counties were added Friday to the list of counties now eligible for emergency grazing of grass enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program.

With the additions, farmers in 30 Kansas counties can now graze grass in the popular program. Typically, the grass is off limits to grazing or haying except in drought conditions.

Ness County already was eligible for emergency grazing of CRP ground.

To qualify for emergency grazing, a series of thresholds must be met, according to Rod Winkler, the CRP specialist with the Farm Service Agency in Manhattan.

Counties must show precipitation rates in the four months prior to making the request are 40 percent less than normal.

Counties also must show forage production is down at least 40 percent as well, Winkler said.

The requirements are strictest during nesting season, currently under way.

Requests from individual counties are submitted to the state FSA office, which reviews them and forwards them on to the national

office. Winkler said the national office then makes the determination.

Several counties already have been denied, including Graham County in its initial request.

Although additional requests likely will be made, Winkler said the state FSA office doesn't expect to be receiving any from counties east of Hays.

Counties to the south and west likely will become eligible as the drought continues, reducing the amount of grass produced.

Emergency grazing is only allowed through Sept. 30, and a quarter of the field must be left untouched for wildlife. Farmers also can

reduce the stocking rate to qualify.

Anyone wanting to graze must first request to do so at county FSA offices. Grazing also will result in a 25 percent reduction in the annual rental payments.



i doubt any of these restrictions are ever enforced.......looks bad.

 

[oldandnew]

Enforced? There's a laugh. They will pay them anyway, just a bit less. Give them disaster loans and direct disaster payments. To subsidize a naturally occuring and repetetive occurance on the great plains. The problem is unstainable agriculture, not drought. These guys would bale hay and save it in the good years, or buy it out of the area and store it for ocassions like these, wrapped in a dry enviornment it will keep for two years at least, lower stocking rates, return to land prices of $300.00 an acre, which is all it's worth, return to strip farming dry acres, and getting two crops for every three years. Nobody is willing to do that because the government will rush into bail you out, in the guise of protecting the food suppliers. These are the same people who tout independence and decry school lunch subsidies, social welfare programs, and over reaching government. Irony is it's all part of the same equation. Just depends on which side of the gimme line your on. It's the american taxpayer/consumer and the land who pays the price as always.

 

[M. R. Byrd]

I am a farmer/rancher and frankly don't appreciate being painted with a broad brush.

 

[oldandnew]

I am too! Grew up in a farming family as well, and work with ag producers all day for a living. I say the same things to them directly, and without apology. They realize when it does or doesn't apply. I have sold cattle and hogs at breakeven and been glad to get that, I have raised crops and lost money or barely covered expenses. Nobody is pointing at you. I have no doubt of your conviction and capability. I have heard you decry the way irrigation sucks the acquifer dry. Historical evidence is undeniable. It clearly shows that the periods of extreme drought in the great plains is common. In the last 100 years these areas have been wetter on whole than average for the last 500. Unless practices change on a large scale, or someone comes up with a water miracle, farming in the great plains, as we have known it will end. Not within our lifetimes maybe, but inevitably it will. I will even go so far as to state that most producers are dedicated to doing it right. But you don't have to drive very far to see abuse. I think you can agree with that. I only say it because I care about saving the greatest enviornment on earth, in my opinion. "Modern" ag practices have painted us all into a corner, financially, and cursed us with short term memory and short term goals. Hard to worry about what might happen in 5 years,or 50 years, if you don't personally survive next year.

 

[hunter94]

of course you never hear anyone tote the good years when they make 60 bushels per acre and bring home big money......one bad year and woe is me, this business is so unforgiving......anyone who has farmed long enough knows there will be lean years when prices or harvests are way down....

protect 25% of a CRP plot from being grazed? yeah, right, those guys will run right out and hot wire that acreage to comply....what a joke, a subsidy is a subsidy, paid by the taxpayers....every one gets to pony up....remember, 47% of the people in this country pay no Fed income tax, any wonder the damn country is bankrupt?