Conservation Programs Must Be Effectively Implemented

Washington, D.C. (May 11, 2004) – David Petty, Iowa rancher and member of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), is testifying before the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Rural Development and Research today. The hearing was called to review recent implementation of the Conservation Title of the 2002 Farm Bill.

“We cannot stress enough just how important it is to our producer members for the conservation title to be implemented well and effectively,” says Petty. “We know the members of this subcommittee understand better than anyone the significant economic contribution that livestock producers make to the U.S. agricultural sector.” Petty and his family run the Iowa River Ranch in North Central Iowa, and have been nationally recognized with various awards for their exemplary stewardship practices. Their family ranch consists of pasture and cropland, where they consistently utilize conservation programs to improve their thousands of acres of land.

Petty is testifying before Congress on behalf of cattle, dairy, swine, and poultry (broilers, layers and turkeys). There are various programs that have specific implementation concerns, including the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans (CNMPs), Conservation Security Program (CSP), Grassland Reserve Program (GRP), and the Technical Service Providers (TSPs).

“Livestock producers made it a top priority to work together during the 2002 Farm Bill process to ensure the EQIP was well-funded and structured so that it could be of real help to our operations,” states Petty.  “In particular, we were and continue to be seriously alarmed by the ongoing and new water and air quality regulatory requirements being imposed on animal feeding operations (AFOs) and we very much wanted to ensure that EQIP would be used to help producers facing those challenges.”  The testimony addresses several other specific concerns with EQIP, including:

·     Funding Priorities — “We believe the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) should set aside an adequate quantity of EQIP funds at the state level to address animal feeding operation’s needs for water and air quality protection assistance.”

·     Improved Ranking Criteria — “Many livestock producers are finding that previous conservation management successes are penalizing them in the EQIP application review and approval process.  Such producers seeking assistance with costly regulatory requirements should not be ranked lower.”

·     Exclusion from Eligibility — “We are deeply concerned that custom feeders are being excluded from eligibility for program participation. This should be corrected immediately.”

“A number of members of the agriculture community were excited by the enactment of the Conservation Security Program as part of the 2002 Farm Bill,” says Petty.  “Other groups were leery of the new program, for fear that it would prop up inefficient producers and hurt the overall efficiency of the industry.” Producers believe CSP needs to be fixed in many ways, including:

·     Watershed Limitation — “This is supposed to be a program which is available to producers nationwide.  The watershed limitation severely and unnecessarily limits enrollment in the CSP and should be dropped.”

·     Water and Soil Quality Requirements — “Restrictive soil and water quality requirements state that a producer must already meet criteria in order to participate, but to do this makes little sense and severely limits eligibility in the program.”

·     Feedlot Participation — “Prohibiting feedlots from being included in the base payment and excluding them from participation in the CSP in 2004 is unfair.”

“Landowners across the West and the Midwest are anticipating the release of the rule for the Grassland Reserve Program,” explains Petty.  “Members of our groups were among the principle drivers behind the creation of the program.  A main concern in supporting the program was keeping large grass landscapes intact. We are concerned the Department is moving away from this in its implementation, and is not sufficiently respectful of the rights of private landowners.” 

Another issue with the implementation of the programs is accountability in Technical Assistance. Whether it is provided by Technical Service Providers or NRCS staff, producers are in full support of NRCS efforts to continue to create a system that can fully and explicitly account for how technical assistance funds are being used by NRCS in support of its programs and missions. 

Currently, the process of locating TSPs to carry out a particular technical assistance task has been quite difficult.   “We believe that if NRCS and the Administration are serious about making full use of TSPs, they should pursue the most direct means of obtaining their services. We strongly encourage NRCS to aggressively pursue the use of TSPs for CNMPs and other services by directly contracting with them,” says Petty.