The government rarely checks to see if farmers carry out soil and water conservation duties that are part of the farm subsidy program, said Agri-Pulse, citing a report from the USDA’s inspector general. The IG reported that random sample reviews were conducted in only one of USDA’s farm support programs from 2012-14, said Agri-Pulse.
In 2015, the first year that conservation compliance rules applied to crop insurance, no one receiving premium subsidies was subject to review. The Farm Service Agency, in charge of crop subsidies but not crop insurance, used data from all of its programs in 2015, “however, it omitted data from 10 states and produced duplicate and invalid records,” said Agri-Pulse.
“USDA participants in these 10 states received over $4 billion in (crop subsidies and conservation payments) for FY 2014,” said the IG report. Agency officials were unable to explain why they did not notice or failed to act on the missing data. In effect, said Agri-Pulse, USDA agencies “can’t verify that the results from the random reviews they did conduct between 2012 and 2015 accurately represent conservation compliance among producers.” The inspector general said the agencies in charge of farm subsidy, conservation and insurance programs needed to agree on each of their roles in reviewing compliance by farmers with the rules.
Since 1985, farmers have been required as a condition of eligibility for USDA payments to write and carry out plans to protect soil on highly erodible land and to preserve wetlands. Environmental groups often complain the “conservation compliance” rules are weakly enforced.