A former high-ranking USDA official, Bruce I. Knight, argues in an opinion piece on Agri-Pulse that the conservation reserve program (CRP) should focus on “environmentally sensitive acreage” rather than placing high-quality croplands under CRP contracts. “When we use CRP in the conservation portfolio of tools we should use it surgically and strategically to trap and treat nutrient runoff or to provide specific habitat benefits rather than large-scale whole field enrollments,” he writes.
“At the birth of the CRP program, it was used to short the corn and wheat supplies — let’s not make that mistake again,” he said.
Knight, a principle at Strategic Conservation Solutions and a third-generation rancher, was undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the USDA from 2006 to 2009, and previously had served as chief of Natural Resources Conservation Service.
He noted that much of the CRP acreage expiring this year and over the next two years consists of grasslands and forest. “There is also significant acreage in permanent wildlife habitat and rare and declining habitat along with filter strips, riparian buffers and wetland restoration,” he said.
CRP enrollment peaked in Fiscal Year 2007 at 36.8 million acres. The 2014 Farm Bill reduced the CRP acreage cap, gradually, from 32 million acres to 24 million by 2018, saving $3.3 billion over 10 years. Today, 23.8 million acres are actually enrolled through more than 650,000 contracts on more than 365,000 farms, Knight says. “Ratcheting down CRP acres by 25 percent was a deliberate budget-saving effort. So, if those acres go up with the 2018 Farm Bill, some other program must be cut to cover the average $72 cost per CRP acre,” he writes.
“If there is a case to be made for funding additional CRP acres, we must be sure it is not accomplished by cutting into monies set aside for conservation on working lands. One alternative source of funding we could tap is the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Congress has noted that a considerable portion of the funds under LWCF in recent years have been used for federal land acquisition. I would rather see us accomplish conservation on lands that remain in private hands,” he said.