Ethanol

[landman]

So are you saying that we can lose all of the acres we have already lost and continue to lose more because we have solved forever the problems of water quality, soil erosion, and habitat for wildlife? You only have to look around at our swollen and silt filled rivers, our disappearing ringneck pheasants, and the continued erosion of topsoil to realize that these are not problems that can be solved with a program that was temporarily around and a temporary success.

You are right in your assertion that the program was a huge success at it's prime but it is no longer at it's prime and all the good it has done for wildlife, soil, and water quality is being reversed and reversed quickly. It is a failure because it is no longer a growing program it is now a dying program at best. I guess I consider a program to be deemed a success when its positive impacts are sustainable. The program quite simply is nowhere near what it used to be and isn't even going to continue in it's depleted and current state.

Are you looking for a permanent solution, something that does not have to be renewed, changed or modified from year to year? I just don't think there is such an option or opportunity. We are always going to have to work on improving conservation policy - its an ongoing process. New policy certainly does not make old policy a failure.

The last Farm Bill had some improvements and a few changes. One change was to change the CRP acres from 39 million acres to 32 million acres. This is a decline but not overly significant since most of the new CRP contracts are small contracts targeting waterways, streams and highly erodible land. We also have better seeding plans, which make them more productive for wildlife. We lost CRP acres during the last couple years but that was because the USDA is trying to get the enrolled acres from 39 million to 32 million acres. We are now there so we should not see any further loss in CRP acres as new enrollments should take the place of expiring acres.

We just need to encourage our lawmakers to keep CRP around - its a good deal - what could be better.