emergency grazing granted

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hunter94

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The federal government has approved the use of Conservation Reserve Program acreage for emergency grazing in 12 drought-stricken counties of western Kansas.

The decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency was announced Tuesday by Republican Sens. Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

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Kansas
U.S. Department of Agriculture
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Roberts says a shortage of available feed caused by months of drought is placing a severe hardship on Kansas cattle producers. Moran adds that the order will help producers keep cattle they might otherwise have to sell.

The order is in place through Sept. 30 and applies to a maximum 75 percent of a user's CRP acreage. The 12 counties are Grant, Hamilton, Haskell, Kearny, Lane, Meade, Morton, Ness, Seward, Stafford, Stanton, and Stevens.

CRP pays farmers to take fragile acreage out of production to help prevent topsoil erosion.
 
Cattle

Ive heard that cattle are at a record hi. Why not sell them? Im wondering why taxpayers or borowing money from China to pay for crp that we are not getting anything back!
 
I believe if the CRP is harvested, there will be no payment!!!
 
They will pay some of the payment back, or for go some of the payment, but as we've seen before, the beleaguered producer will come out mostly with the cake, having eaten it too! Already hay is approaching $200.00 per ton in some areas. Even in these conditions, will probably get at least a ton per acre, even if you payback $25-50 per acre CRP payment,that's a nice little profit,whether you feed it yourself or sell it to the neighbors We will end up with billard tables for CRP, and paying disaster payments to producers as well. After all the CRP we set aside to prevent wind erosion, improve water quality, and protect topsoil is not necessary during a drought. We forget, free enterprise means the freedom to fail, as well as succeed. Sorry, I get wound up occassionally, but if it was your small business, shop, pizza place, plumber, grocery store, etc. the government would let you go broke rather than return or for go your tax obligation be it sales tax, federal income tax, or withholding tax. I guarantee you couldn't even get a legitimate loan. This amounts to the same thing. We already have ready examples of bank welfare and wall street welfare. I'll call it what it is, farm welfare. If it benefits you in this case, I'm sure you see it differently, so did the bankers and security speculators.
 
I don't care about the money as much as the loss of habitat. Yes, I feel for the cattlemen, but the wildlife out there are suffering from a lack of habitat and we will now feed the CRP habitat to cattle and further diminish the available habitat for wildlife. It's a double whammy for our wildlife. Tough times for all.
 
I think I've abandoned all political affiliation on these issues. Democrat or Republican, nothing will be fixed. We need to eliminate speculation on U.S. commodities, which would most likely include a collateral account on margins. We're getting dangerously close to default on our debt obligations, regardless of habitat funding and the like. We need a grassroots movement of Americans (not party people), to fix this. I hate to admit it, but habitat is the least of my concerns right now. I'm more worried about keeping the United States of America intact, because our representatives don't really care.
 
Well said Wildcat. I'm not much of a historian, but what little I remember is that the most powerful nations ever eventually overstretched their armies and destroyed their soil and "habitat", resulting in their decline and fall. Far too many people at the top more concerned about how rich they can get and less concerned about the common good. We spend way too much money paying our enemies and keeping them strong while we grow weaker here at home.
 
BleuBijou said:
I believe if the CRP is harvested, there will be no payment!!!
Click to expand...
Only the USA would lease land for "conservation" and then when you need it the most "drought" give it back to farm! If farmers would plant a winter cover crop OR not plow under harvested fall crops and leave the land bare would do more for conversation and wild life than CRP program ever thought of.
 
How is a winter cover crop going to provide nesting habitat? Just what I need somebody who doesn't have a clue coming on here telling me how to farm. The CRP is the best program ever for upland birds. When the day comes it is gone you will realize that. (maybe not)
 
I certainly agree CRP is the best thing to happen to upland birds, and a host of other wildlife since soil bank disappeared. As far as winter cover crops, I'd say winter wheat qualifies admirably, and provides approximately 70% of the nesting habitat for pheasants, in the areas of Kansas in question. Crp provides the remainder, or ditches. Winter cover is I would guess reversed, with CRP the prefered habitat and majority of the winter survival. Loss of useable CRP in these areas will result in concentrating birds in the remainder, making depredation from all forms of predators, man included much more successful, leaving us fewer birds to form a breeding nucleus. Damage may take a couple of years to manifest itself, or a return to normal moisture next year and over the winter, could stimulate a hyper reproduction cycle, negating any damage entirely. It's a small comfort that any mature CRP which gets recycled as hay or grazed down, once, will actually make the CRP better, eventually, by stimulating diversity and opening up some ground, pretty good alternative to burning. Quail in particular would benefit from the disturbance. As an old timer, I have always noticed quail like to live near and among cattle. On the other hand, there will probably be a lot of bare WIHA's in those counties next season, particularily if hayed late with little moisture. I don't mind the grazing so much, as long as it's not grazed down to bare ground. What I object to is baling then grazing it off to nothing but dirt. Predictably plenty of this will go on.
 
fsentkilr said:
How is a winter cover crop going to provide nesting habitat? Just what I need somebody who doesn't have a clue coming on here telling me how to farm. The CRP is the best program ever for upland birds. When the day comes it is gone you will realize that. (maybe not)
Click to expand...

fsentkilr, can you bale your CRP if you do not own any cattle?? Curious and I figure I better get it straight from someone you most likely knows!! Thanks, Bleu
 
Excellent response OldandNew!!! True, the grazing will eventually benefit the Crp, quail, and pheasants. However, in the short term, it has every potential of making this dip in the population even deeper. The smarter response would be to make CRP owners where there is moisture cut theirs and provide it to those where there has been no rain. They could reimburse harvest, baling, and shipping charges, but that isn't the way we work. Instead of making the long term rational decision to destock, we will "aide" these landowners in extending the damage to their property and they will suffer those decisions over more years than they would if they had made the choice early on to keep only the stock their range could support. I've had this happen adjacent to the area I manage in the '90s. They still haven't recovered the range quality due to their overgrazing then. It is extremely difficult to lose what you've developed in a herd for something that could mitigate in a year. Makes these decisions devastating.
 
Talked to my friend in Lane County and he said he is not allowed to graze his CRP because his is Crp is in a newer contract. His Crp ranges from 4-7 years old and signed up for 15. Lot's of rules and reg's I am trying to understand.
 
I'm not sure of the new rules but the last time we had emergency grazing in our county you couldn't bale the CRP and sell it. If you didn't have cattle you couldn't bale it. Also, you had to leave 25% which is still better than if the CRP was farmed. On the cover crop, winter wheat is different than a cover crop. It is left until late June when the wheat is harvested. It provides nesting cover in late April and May and June after a cover crop would have been killed. A cover crop is killed earlier in the spring to allow planting of a spring crop. How good of cover is winter wheat in the winter? The guys out in western Kansas need all the moisture they can save to grow a summer crop. They don't need a cover crop growing in the winter using up moisture. Thats why they spray the wheat stubble in fallow ground they don't want weeds using up moisture in the soil profile.
 
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