The biggest USDA conservation program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, slights ongoing work by farmers in favor of operators who are new to the program or agree to take on additional land, water and wildlife work, say two small-farm groups. The groups commented ahead of Tuesday’s deadline for comments on revisions to CSP to reflect the 2014 farm law. More than 60 million acres of farm, forest and range land are enrolled in CSP, the first program to pay farmers to make stewardship a part of their daily work.
The Center for Rural Affairs, in Lyons, Neb, said the emphasis on new or additional practices “misses the mark by supporting late adopters of improved conservation systems over those who have historically placed conservation at the core of their operations.”
Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition said there was “a really severe differential” in payment rates in favor of new practices. NSAC said, “This has the unintended effect of penalizing some of our nation’s best conservation-oriented farmers by keeping them out of the program or providing them very low levels of support, sending the unmistakable message that a conservation ethic should wait for government sanction.”