USDA to Open CRP Land to Farming?

[Anonymous]

I don't know how much of the problem is ethanol-- But I agree that some of this land should never come out of CRP--as it should have never been broken up in the first place...I helped my partner put up a 1/2 section of his CRP for hay for a couple of years--I swathed, he baled, I stacked--- and I've never swathed a tougher chunk of ground...You'd have to swath around blow sand piles 30 feet taller than the swather- and dodge gravestone sized rocks that grew new yearly out of the ground...

We also combined a 1/2 section of wheat that was taken out of CRP-rocky, gravelly, sandy hills- and I don't think it ever made a profit off it in the 10 years I was involved with it...Crop/hail insurance could make it a break even is about it.....
None of this should have ever been broken up in the first place- should have been left to grass- and cows....

Tinkering with conservation program a mistake

Bush administration continues to ignore the elephant in the room -- ethanol


By Alan Guebert for the TH

Telegraph Herald - Dubuque, IA

July 20, 2008



When Farm Journal's late staff economist John Marten explained the then-new Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) in the mid-1980s, he did so with a clever memory tool.



"CRP isn't complicated," Marten once told a large crowd (which included me) back then, "if you remember the 'Four Ws': West, Wheat, Wet and Windy."



CRP will be called many things, he noted, "But, in the end, it is a set-aside program mostly for Western wheat growers and some Midwestern farmers cursed with either wet or windblown farms."



Marten was spot on.



By 1990, CRP held 29.2 million acres; much of it his "Four W" land. In 2007, the 22nd year of what was to have been a 10-year program, 60 percent of CRP's acres, or 21.7 million of its 36.7 million, was in nine mostly Western wheat states.



That background and those numbers are crucial elements in the Bush Administration's recent decision to allow "emergency" CRP haying and grazing this summer and its current handwringing on whether to allow farmers and ranchers early, no-penalty withdrawals from CRP next year.



That latter idea is pushed by livestock producers being swiftly bled by record feed prices.



Neither choice, however, addresses the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) and its lead-footed driver, ethanol, a massively bigger force behind today's high grain prices than the idled



37 million acres snoozing in CRP.



Current projections show ethanol needing 4 billion bushels of corn to fuel American cars and trucks in 2008. That's two times our projected exports and nearly as much as will be fed to livestock. This incredible, unforeseen demand, backstopped by $140 crude oil and federal RFS mandates, is the elephant in today's CRP debate that everyone sees and no one talks about.



Why? Mostly politics.



"The Bush Administration is absolutely committed to ethanol," says one Capitol Hill watcher. As such, he explains, the White House will look at any tool -- other than cutting the RFS -- to lower grain prices, including CRP, to keep the biofuel rocket roaring while, hopefully, lowering food prices.



Given where the bulk of the CRP land now lies, any scheme to push 8 to 10 million acres (the number USDA is kicking around) of CRP back into production promises little, if any, relief from today's tall corn and soybean prices. Almost all is Four W land; it simply can't grow the grain necessary to address the shortfall.



There are legal hurdles, too. If the White House orders early, no-penalty "outs" of CRP for 2009, it probably faces a court test like its late-May announcement for "emergency" CRP grazing and haying.



That move was blocked in July when the National Wildlife Fund sued USDA over claims that USDA failed to follow CRP rules. Those rules permit emergency haying and grazing due, mostly, to natural disasters. They do not, however, permit opening CRP for man-made disasters--like ethanol-bloated feed prices clobbering livestock producers.



At least not before an environmental impact study is completed, claim the Wildlifers.



Before grousing that greenie weenies are partially responsible for the $17 million-per-day losses hog producers are eating and $13 million-per-day losses cattle producers are enduring, remember it was President Bush who promised the hook and bullet boys, CRP's staunchest defenders, that he'd never touch CRP in 2004.



But this debate is not about broken campaign promises, lawsuits or even CRP. It's about ethanol, the elephant in the room that is turning all the furniture -- as well as the lives of most American livestock producers -- into kindling.



Tinkering with CRP instead of debating the RFS is a foolish, costly mistake. Livestock producers are paying for it now; everyone will pay for it later.



thonline.com

 

[Mike]

I take you're not a protector of property ownership rights?

What's the alternative? Using the local FSA board to determine and dictate what a person can, and cannot plant on his own property like AlGore advocated in his book? Where would it end?

 

[Anonymous]

I take you're not a protector of property ownership rights?

What's the alternative? Using the local FSA board to determine and dictate what a person can, and cannot plant on his own property like AlGore advocated in his book? Where would it end?

What do you mean :???: ...Each individual has his right to do what ever he wants with his land... But that said I don't think some should ever take some of it out...If they do- it should be left in grass used for grazing or hay....Like I said- it should never have been broken up in the first place...

Some of it just ends up being blow sand over in your neighbors fence or pasture when they try to farm it- or being huge duststorms blowing toward ND.....But I don't deny anyone the right to be an idiot and think they can grow crops on land that won't....And I suppose some will again...

Much of it came about because of another bad Agriculture policy--"seed her fenceline to fenceline, boys".....

And I didn't read Al Gores book- I'll leave that Nobel Prize high science stuff to you.... :wink:

 

[blackjack]

...i have to agree with you oldtimer...some farmers broke some land up here in eastern alberta that should have been left for cows...they did ok with a govt program called grip...but when the program ended so did their farming...

 

[EJ]

I`m in total agreement OT. That land should have never been broken and once it get into the CRP it stays there permenently. This CRP deal has been good for the hunters and for the land speculators.

 

[Denny]

I think they should abolish the whole CRP program. There is a land jockey here that comes in buy's up land plows it never even tried planting a crop on it and it got enrolled.He also got some very productive land enrolled and as soon as the check is spent he sells the land with stipulations.By the time this land comes out of crp here it will be woods and brush and will take alot of money to get cleaned up.Another thing it does is ruin's the chance for a young farmer/rancher to get a toe hold.Try buying a peice of land when you purchase a 1/4 and 1/2 of that is enrolled in a 15 year crp deal by some money hungry asshole.Most people who have it in crp are'nt trying to conserve anything other than their bank accounts.Or they pay them to plant tree's here,for pete's sake we can't see a 1/2 mile here for all the tree's and what happen's some slick buy's up land and the government pays them to plant it full of tree's.Now it's their land and if it's tree's they want plant them but why in the heck should the taxpayer's pay for some rich prick's playground...Try buying someland in North Dakota 1/2 of the farm is enrolled in a (NEW) crp program until 2022 holy crap you got pasture and swamp and the productive land sit's idle.Anyone who enrolls land in crp needs to be kicked in the nut's (twice)grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

 

[cutterone]

I agree with you Denny! We've got guys around here that have put ground that was never farmed since I was a kid and they get a check every year. The original program was to get farmers to use better conservation around waterways and let some ground go fallow since they stopped using it for pasture and started planting corn, on corn, on corn, using more and more fertilizer to compensate. There was a reason to rotate crops which included pasture or fallow that the old boys understood - it was good for the land and conservation.

 

[Anonymous]

Industry News - PM
Judge limits grazing on CRP acreage, skewers USDA

By Lisa M. Keefe on 7/24/2008


A federal judge in Seattle Thursday morning entered a permanent injunction against the U.S. Department of Agriculture's program releasing acreage from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) for haying and grazing.

USDA had opened the acres in an attempt to help ranchers cope with high feed prices and possible grain shortages.

In his decision, U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour made sweeping exceptions to his prohibition, but then imposed terms that would make actually using USDA's program economically unattractive.

Some exceptions

The judge's exceptions include:
CRP participants who had applied to and received approval from the Farm Service Agency to use that land before the Court issued its original temporary restraining order on July 8;

CRP participants whose applications were in to the Farm Service Agency before the TRO was issued, that may yet be approved by the agency;

CRP participants who have yet to apply for permission, but who can prove that they spent at least $4,500 on equipment and other preparations in anticipation of being able to hay and graze on CRP land released by USDA for that purpose this year.

However, those who do opt to use the CRP acreage this year may have only a few weeks in which to do it; the judge imposed several deadlines, based on when the applications were received. Furthermore, they are subject to a type of penalty in that the order prohibits them from using CRP land for either five or 10 years after this season; the timeframe is based on the terms of a lawsuit settlement reached in 2006.

USDA lambasted

When USDA announced its intention to open CRP acreage for haying and grazing, the National Wildlife Federation sued the agency over the environmental issues, which the NWF said were inadequately researched. (See Judge orders compromise on CRP grazing on Meatingplace.com, July 18, 2008.) The two sides were given until earlier this week to reach a compromise, but failing to do so, the judge stepped in with his order.

In his order, Judge Coughenour said USDA had "violated the National Environmental Policy Act" and acted "arbitrarily, capriciously, and unreasonably, when they decided, on the basis of the 'Environmental Evaluation' produced," that the proposed program would have no environmental consequences.

 

[AX-]

CRP is also a way that a young person CAN start out. You can guarantee income and buy land that can make most of the loan payment. Then you can use the CRP land as collateral to buy farmground or pasture. There are abuses to any program, but for some it can work and work well. I would be living in a box on the side of the road if I had bought farmground instead of CRP. With big land payments and no crops because of drought, CRP looked like a great option.