This is one piece of legislation upon which all Americans depend, urban as well as rural. With limited time remaining before expiration of current program authorities, time is of the essence. While each of our respective organizations will continue to work to accomplish our key priorities, the farm bill must move forward. We urge your leadership in allowing the Senate to consider this legislation as soon as possible.

Download the complete letter.

“These programs are critically important tools for meeting conservation challenges. Our farmers and ranchers face great pressure to produce food, fiber and fuel while maintaining healthy soils, protecting water quality and providing wildlife habitat. Rapidly rising world food demand creates incredible economic opportunity for agriculture, but also makes it even more imperative for us to address the conservation challenges we face here at home.”

Scholl’s testimony urged completion of a Farm Bill this year.  Other key points included:

•  the importance of including strong conservation funding;
•  support for a farm and ranch land protection easement program in the farm bill;
•  support for the new Regional Conservation Partnership Program that gives local producers and conservationists a tool to address natural resource concerns;
•  and that conservation compliance should continue to be attached to the centerpiece of the farm safety net, as it has been in the past, which in this environment means reattaching to the crop insurance premium subsidy.

Download the audio/video from the day’s testimonies or read Scholl’s full testimony on farm bill conservation programs.

Washington, D.C., April 23, 2012— American Farmland Trust (AFT) welcomed the 2012 farm bill draft unveiled late last week by the Senate Agriculture Committee. AFT President Jon Scholl commended Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, and Senator Pat Roberts ofKansas, the committee’s Ranking Minority Member, for their efforts to move the farm bill forward.

“It’s great to see the Chair and Ranking Member working together on a bipartisan basis to advance this farm bill process,” said Scholl. “Crafting a viable and effective farm bill will only get harder if Congress kicks the can down the road and the budget noose tightens further.” AFT is one of more than 60 groups that urged Congress earlier this year to produce a timely farm bill.

“We cannot afford to delay this crucial legislation when our farmers and ranchers face continued pressure to produce food, fiber and fuel while also maintaining healthy soils, protecting water quality and providing wildlife habitat,” Scholl continued. “Rapidly rising world food demand creates incredible economic opportunity for agriculture, but also makes it even more imperative for us to address the conservation challenges we face here at home.”

In light of these challenges, funding for the Conservation Title is critical. “I applaud the Senate Agriculture Committee for providing robust funding for the conservation title,” said Scholl. “While all cuts are painful, and in any other situation we would be asking for more funding, given the budget reality we believe this is a fair deal.”  The Committee draft limits the cuts to Conservation Title funding to $6 billion over ten years.

AFT applauds the Committee’s commitment to support farm and ranch land protection through the new Agricultural Land Easement option under the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. This tool will continue the legacy of the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program because it embodies core principles that have been critical to that program’s success. First, it will protect working lands and keep them in agricultural use. Second, only permanent easements will be offered. Third, the easements will continue to work through partnerships that provide flexibility at the local level and leverage state and local funds.

Scholl said, “Our nation has a critical need to protect farm and ranch land. We lost acreage the size ofIndianabetween 1982 and 2007, yet we are expected to produce more food than ever before. Permanent conservation easements protect agricultural land from development, safeguard local agricultural economies and help farmers and ranchers transition their land to the next generation.”

“Another important accomplishment in this bill is the creation of the new Regional Conservation Partnership Program,” said Scholl. “This program is a huge leap forward in how conservation is delivered, because it gives local producers and conservationists a tool to come together to address natural resource concerns. It is also competitive and merit-based, which means that the resources will go where they can do the most good.”

AFT has had great success working with a precursor to this program to address nitrogen losses in the Upper Salt Fork Watershed inChampaign County,Ill.This project has significantly increased adoption of innovative techniques to retain nitrogen fertilizer on farmland. Local farmers and conservationists alike have praised the partnership-based project structure.

Scholl did note that some issues remain to be worked out as the farm bill progresses.  ”No bill is perfect right out of the gates,” he said. “We will continue to look for any opportunity to bring funding for Agricultural Land Easements back toward the levels of the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program baseline, especially in the later years that the bill impacts. In addition, though conservation compliance remains in effect through the new commodity support program, we will continue to urge that it be reattached to the crop insurance premium support.”

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About American Farmland Trust

American Farmland Trust is the nation’s leading conservation organization dedicated to savingAmerica’s farm and ranch land, promoting environmentally sound farming practices and supporting a sustainable future for farms. Since its founding in 1980 by a group of farmers and citizens concerned about the rapid loss of farmland to development, AFT has helped save millions of acres of farmland from development and led the way for the adoption of conservation practices on millions more.

AFT’s national office is located in Washington, DC. Phone: 202-331-7300. For more information, visit www.farmland.org.

Washington, D.C.—American Farmland Trust (AFT) urged Congress to consider the environmental impacts of farm safety-net reform and reiterated key AFT policy positions in support of a strong and equitable farm support system.  The group’s comments came in response to the Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, “Risk Management and Commodities in the 2012 Farm Bill.” The hearing underscored the consensus that crop insurance is positioned to become the primary risk management tool for farmers, while reform of other farm programs is still evolving.

“Conservation compliance measures should be reattached to the federal crop insurance program – the new farm safety net – in order to protect the long term productivity of vulnerable land,” said AFT presidentJon Scholl.  Scholl’s comment was triggered by a comment during the hearing, which asserted that tying conservation compliance measures to crop insurance would discourage participation in the federal crop insurance program.  Scholl noted, “Conservation compliance didn’t discourage participation in farm programs; it won’t in crop insurance either.”

Currently, farmers must apply approved soil conservation systems to highly erodible cropland and refrain from draining wetlands to maintain eligibility for agricultural support programs.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), federally subsidized crop insurance is the only large USDA program that is not currently subject to conservation compliance.

“We support a strong farm safety net in order to keep farmers on the land producing food for our country.  However, a safety net is not complete if it creates long-term threats to farm productivity by incentivizing farming practices that jeopardize our soil and water,” Scholl continued.  AFT believes the facts clearly show that managing risk with crop insurance has the same impact on our soil and water resources as managing risk with farm programs of the past.

“Congress is about to undertake the most far-reaching reform of farm safety-net programs since the 1996 Farm Bill,” explained Scholl. “As the Agriculture Committee crafts this reform package, it must also remain mindful of the potential impact farm program changes could have on the environment and on conservation practices.”

Risk-management programs that take away too much economic risk result in producer decisions driven by government payments rather than the market, Scholl noted.  Those distortions, he added, have real consequences for the environment by encouraging production in areas that cannot be farmed in an environmentally sustainable manner. “Economic and environmental sustainability must go hand in hand,” Scholl said.

“We can do this by maintaining strong funding support for conservation programs that help farmers manage their soil and water resources.  Congress should also stand firm on the principle that farms with highly erodible land that receive federal subsidies be required to have a conservation plan.” Scholl said.

AFT had previously laid out four key principles in addition to compliance that it believes should guide the development of the 2012 Farm Bill’s risk management title. “In light of today’s hearing, we again encourage Congress to refer to these principles as they write the 2012 Farm Bill,” said Scholl. AFT urges that the 2012 Farm Bill’s risk management programs should:

1. Respond to markets and be revenue-based. Revenue protection should be triggered by current prices and yields, not historic averages.

2. Complement, not duplicate, crop insurance. The Bill should ensure that crop insurance and commodity support programs do not overlap but rather work in concert.

3. Require accountability. Farmers should receive assistance only if they sustain an objective, real loss.

4. Minimize distortion. Government payments should not determine where and how intensively crops are grown.

(More on AFT’s Farm Safety Net proposal can be found at http://www.farmbillfacts.org/farm-safety-net.)

Washington, D.C.—“I appreciate Secretary Vilsack’s support of conservation incentives, but I believe that he has created a false choice between incentive-driven conservation and conservation compliance,” said Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust (AFT).  “Conservation compliance is nothing more than an incentive for farmers with highly sensitive lands to follow a few basic conservation practices. When I talk to farmers, they recognize that conservation compliance is crucial for the long-term health of our soil.”

Put in place in the 1985 Farm Bill, conservation compliance is a set of minimum conservation standards that farmers with sensitive lands must follow in order to receive federal farm subsidies. Compliance helps reduce erosion and protect our productive soils on the farmland that is most vulnerable to erosion, while also protecting wetlands. No farmer is required to follow conservation compliance, but if a farmer is not in compliance, USDA will temporarily withhold certain benefits—including commodity, disaster, and conservation payments and loans—until the farmer comes back into compliance.

Currently, compliance requirements do not attach to the federal insurance premium support that farmers receive when they purchase crop insurance. Compliance was attached to crop insurance subsidies in 1985, but was later removed in 1996 to help encourage producers to purchase crop insurance. Today, program participation is not an issue, with over 80 percent of commodity farmers signed up. As crop insurance becomes the centerpiece of the farm safety net going forward, and direct payments go away, farmers will have much less of an incentive to follow conservation compliance.

“This is a critical juncture for U.S. agriculture,” added Scholl. “We have a choice in this farm bill between moving forward and falling backward, and for the good of agriculture and our key natural resources, we must move forward. The conservation compliance system works, and it should be attached to the core of the farm support system, regardless of whether that’s a traditional commodity program, a revenue program, or crop insurance. This is just a basic accountability measure.”

Conservation compliance has contributed 40 percent of the erosion reduction on our most vulnerable land since 1982, saving at least 295 million tons of soil per year. With demand for agriculture production doubling by 2050 to meet the needs of a growing world population, we cannot afford to lose our precious soil.

In addition, compliance has greatly reduced conversion of ecologically important wetlands on farms, preserving the critical benefits they provide for flood protection, nutrient filtering and wildlife habitat.

“Despite what you may have heard, attaching compliance to the crop insurance premium support would have a pretty minimal impact back on the farm,” Scholl continued. “Farmers across the United States would still be able to buy crop insurance and get operating loans from their bank. Anyone out of compliance simply wouldn’t receive the crop insurance premium support until they come back into compliance. NRCS and FSA would still do compliance checks using the same system we have in place now, and crop insurance agents would not have an additional enforcement role.”

Data from the USDA Economic Research Service show that the vast majority of farmers who purchase crop insurance are already covered by compliance because of the commodity, conservation, disaster, and loan programs that they participate in. This is true for 95 percent of wheat production, 98 percent of corn and soybean production, and over
99 percent of cotton and rice production. This means that applying conservation compliance to crop insurance would affect less than 5 percent of commodity production in this country.  Moreover, since compliance provisions only apply to roughly 25 percent of U.S. cropland, the real effect on farmers would be even smaller than these numbers indicate.

“So let’s do the right thing, reattach compliance to crop insurance, and keep this basic incentive for farmers to follow minimum conservation standards on vulnerable soils and wetlands,” adds Scholl. “It will keep our conservation system incentive-based and help us all in the long run.”

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American Farmland Trust is the nation’s leading conservation organization dedicated to saving America’s farm and ranch land, promoting environmentally sound farming practices and supporting a sustainable future for farms. Since its founding in 1980 by a group of farmers and citizens concerned about the rapid loss of farmland to development,  AFT has helped save millions of acres of farmland from development and
led the way for the adoption of conservation practices on millions more.
AFT’s national office is located in Washington, D.C. Phone: 202-331-7300.
For more information, visit www.farmland.org.

As Daniel Looker, of Agriculture.com, noted:

The bottom line from this group: “…we urge you to reauthorize the Farm Bill in a manner that sustains the integrity and effectiveness of the Conservation Title and maintains conservation funding that meets our national needs.”

Read all of Looker’s story online.

Washington, D.C.—“Today’s Senate Agriculture Committee hearing confirmed something America’s farmers have known for a long time: you can’t go wrong with conservation programs,” says Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust (AFT). “The panelists gave a strong defense of the conservation programs that we have in place today and also provided thoughtful suggestions for how to make the programs even more efficient, effective and focused in the future.”

“Several themes stood out during the hearing,” says Scholl. “One is how valuable conservation programs are to farmers, especially those focused on working lands. The farmers who spoke about their own conservation efforts gave us a firsthand look at conservation’s crucial role in helping meet rapidly increasing demand while maintaining healthy soils, water and air.”

In addition, many of the panelists noted that conservation programs can drive economic growth on multiple levels:

• Farmers can achieve greater long-term productivity through working lands practices such as no-till production or nutrient management efforts.
• Permanent protection of key farmland through the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program can ensure that rural businesses—such as cherry processors in western Michigan—have the production base that they need to thrive.
• Hunting, fishing and other recreational activities created by wildlife conservation programs generate over $1 trillion in economic activity every year, according to the National Fish and Wildlife Federation.

In light of these economic benefits, the unintended consequences of proposed cuts to conservation are particularly troubling. “Panelist Carl Mattson, a farmer from Montana offered some very wise input to the committee,” Scholl adds. “He said that current levels of spending on conservation may not be enough and reminded us that investment in conservation today is ‘insurance’ to help steward our natural resources for the future, when our agricultural capacity must increase.”

“I am delighted to see the Senate moving forward with farm bill hearings,” says Scholl. “Finalizing the 2012 Farm Bill this spring should be ‘job number one’ because a temporary extension of current policy merely creates needless uncertainty and greater fiscal challenges in the future. We need to move forward with strong conservation programs and policies that better serve farmers, consumers and our environment”

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PRESS RELEASE

Washington, D.C.—“I am proud to stand with conservationists from all 50 states as we call for a strong Conservation Title in the 2012 Farm Bill,” says Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust (AFT). “We must have the most robust conservation spending possible to give farmers the programs they need to protect our farm and ranch land and to help keep our soils, water and other natural resources in the best condition possible.”

American Farmland Trust has joined with more than 640 organizations to send a letter supporting the Conservation Title to the Senate and House leadership of the Agriculture Committees.

This diverse group—representing landowners, farmers, ranchers, forest managers, agricultural and forest businesses, hunters and anglers, local and state government officials, and non-profit organizations—knows first-hand the importance of conservation programs for the economic and environmental health of rural America. As the letter says, “The result is real conservation with multiple benefits for every region of America. Not the least of these is helping landowners to stay on the land as stewards of America’s legacy of natural resources.”

The letter reminds Congress that Conservation Title programs are implemented in unique partnerships—and cooperative conservation agreements—between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and private landowners. This time-tested and successful model helps make conservation an engine of economic growth by advancing agriculture, forestry and outdoor recreation.

The organizations recognize that difficult decisions will be made while Congress works to reduce the federal deficit, noting, “…the proposal by the House and Senate Agriculture Committees in the Budget Control Act last year demonstrates that the Conservation Title can continue to meet vital national needs while sharing in budget reductions.” At the same time, this letter is a clear indication of the importance of continued support for the Conservation Title. “We must keep moving forward, despite the fiscal challenges,” says Scholl.

“It’s time to recognize that the Conservation Title is a crucial strategic investment that underpins our health and prosperity today—one that will only gain in importance as we face increasing agricultural and environmental challenges in coming decades,” Scholl concludes.

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There is a general fear that if we wait until 2013, the budget circumstances will be even worse than they are today.

Read the complete article for more information on where the farm bill is now, and for ideas for how to get involved.

In a press release regarding the letter, Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust, explained:

We must work to pass a farm bill in 2012 because our nation’s farmers and ranchers deserve a measure of certainty. Farmers require a safety net that works effectively, and they need access to tools that help them be good stewards of our natural resources. Those people less fortunate during these economic times deserve a helping hand so they don’t go hungry, while our nation as a whole needs the security which effective food policies and programs can bring.

Download the letter, including a full list of all organizations who signed on.