[TN-Bird] Re: Birders relief: House passes "acceptable" farm bill
- From: Melinda Welton <weltonmj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Dev Joslin <devjoslin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:07:54 -0600
Dev
I wrote to you personally, but I wanted the rest of the tnbird community how
much I appreciate you sharing things like this from time to time. You are
off in Costa Rica but it¹s clear that your focus on conservation includes
all of the Americans!
Thank you
Melinda Welton
Franklin, TN
From: Dev Joslin <devjoslin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Dev Joslin <devjoslin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2014 10:38:27 -0600
To: tnbird <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Ron and Dollyann
<aves7000@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Melinda Welton <weltonmj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [TN-Bird] Birders relief: House passes "acceptable" farm bill
Tennesse birders (and other conservation-minded people),
I don't know how many of you have been following the intense debates over a
new farm bill for the past two years.
It has huge implications for ducks, other waterfowl, and ground-nesting
birds in grasslands--especially in the upper plain states where many of
these species breed. Finally, after endless bickering, the House and Senate
conference committee on this huge bill (1 trillion dollars) finally agreed
to a compromise, and the House passed it yesterday (U. S. Senate should
follow soon). Below is the important information for birders and
conservationists, which I have lifted from the internet (Please no
plagiarism accusations):
There's good news and bad news for conservationists in the new Farm Bill,
which was just approved yesterday by U. S. House and should be approved by
the Senate soon.
The good news is that farmers and ranchers will have to apply conservation
measures in exchange for federal crop insurance on highly erodible land and
wetlands.
The linkage of "conservation compliance" to crop insurance was a key
provision sought by conservation groups, such as Ducks Unlimited and the
Izaak Walton League.
Said Bill Wenzel of the Izaak Walton League: "Ensuring conservation benefits
are retained as part of the taxpayer-supported financial safety net for
farmers is the League's No. 1 priority.''
The bill also includes a "sodsaver" provision that limits crop insurance
subsidies for the first few years in areas where land is newly converted to
cropland. That's meant to discourage farmers from tilling native grasslands.
The provision is limited to lands in Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, and
the Dakotas.
However, the bill also cuts $6 billion from conservation over the next
decade, consolidating 23 conservation programs into 13. It is expected to
lower the maximum number of acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve
Program (CRP) to 24 million acres; the maximum was 32 million acres under
the last farm bill.
CRP, in which landowners take marginal lands out of production and usually
plant them to grass, has been hailed as a windfall for wildlife, especially
ground-nesting birds. Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota have lost
hundreds of thousands of acres of CRP in recent years as farmers pulled out
of the program, plowed up the grass and planted corn and soybeans.
Last fall, there were about 25.6 million acres in CRP, but 9 million acres
are set to expire over the next five years.
Enrollment into the continuous CRP program, which targets the most
environmentally sensitive acres, would continue.
The 2008 Farm Bill expired 15 months ago, but Congress has been unable to
agree on provisions for a new bill, until now.
"The farm bill report is a true compromise for farming and wildlife," said
Tim Roble, state chairman of Minnesota Ducks Unlimited. "No one got
everything they wanted, but we all got some real victories, and for that
reason we are supportive of the conference report."
Ducks Unlimited¹s conservation priorities in the conference report included
recoupling of conservation compliance with crop insurance, a Sodsaver
provision that protects native prairie in the duck factory of North America,
a consolidated easement program that includes a strong wetland component,
and continuing important programs like the Conservation Reserve Program,
Conservation Stewardship Program and Environmental Quality Incentives
Program.
For more comments and details, try the following links (you may have to cut
and paste some of them into your browser):
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/29/3218151/farm-energy-environment/
www.ducks.org/related/farm-bill <http://www.ducks.org/related/farm-bill>
http://www.ducks.org/conservation/public-policy/waterfowl-advocate/senator-j
on-tester-interview-with-du
<http://www.ducks.org/conservation/public-policy/waterfowl-advocate/senator-
jon-tester-interview-with-du>
http://www.ducks.org/minnesota/farm-bill-minnesota
www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/242451011.html
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