USDA Opens Conservation Reserve Land to Grazing, Haying

By Courtney Lowery, 5-28-08

The USDA today announced that it will authorize 24 million acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, about 65 percent, to be grazed or hayed for “critical feed” for livestock.

The agency cites rising crop prices, high demand for feed and steep competition for acres as its reasons for opening up the CRP lands. The USDA estimates the critical use program will generate 18 million tons of feed worth $1.2 billion.

For the 2008 season, 36.8 million acres are enrolled in CRP, which pays landowners to take their land out of production for 10-15 years to restore habitat, curb erosion and improve water quality. For 2007 enrollments, landowners will get a total of $1.8 million in rental payments, at an average of of $49.49 per acre and per farm, about $4,130 a year, according to recent USDA statistics.

The agency boasts CRP as the largest private-public conservation effort in the country and indeed, studies from the USDA show great benefits to water, erosion and habitat.

But, the program is also under fire for taking critical ag land out of production by providing a “retirement” of sorts for farmers and for contributing to skyrocketing land prices by making cropland attractive to amenity ranch buyers who are looking for places to hunt and fish while getting income from the land.

And then there’s the effect of CRP on rural communities. While most federal studies, including this 2004 study by the Economic Research Service, show that rural flight was happening before CRP, the same report acknowledges that “CRP may have facilitated population outmigration from farming communities.”

All that aside, though, in my mind, one of the biggest unintended consequences of the program is highlighted by a provision in this new feed program: “The most environmentally-sensitive land enrolled in CRP” will not be eligible for haying or grazing.

So, 24 million acres in a program meant to rehab delicate farm land aren’t environmentally sensitive enough to be left alone?

It’s a subtle problem with CRP, one that doesn’t get the press that rural depopulation or amenity ranch issue do: Because of the way the program is administered, it tends to conserve land with habitat and water (more likely to be productive), while ignoring some pieces and farms that arguably would need it more. Enrollments are granted based on an Environmental Benefits Index formula, or EBI, which gives points for certain dynamics on the land—so when you apply to put your land into CRP, you get EBI points for things like ground cover, proximity to water, trees or other habitat features.

And that means that high, dry, eroding prairie land, like the farm I grew up on—land that likely shouldn’t be farmed anyway—land that doesn’t have enough ground cover, trees or habitat to be eligible for CRP, doesn’t get in. When we applied to put our land in, several times, we got outbid by other farms in the county that could score those EBI points. One of the neighboring farms, a nice, partially irrigated, fertile spot in the Teton River bottom (close to trees and water and ample habitat—a favorite hunting spot for locals) was one of those.

That farm is now listed with Sotheby’s for $6.2 million. One of the selling points? “Cropland bordering the 9 parcels is part of the CRP program, and this nearly untouched land holds potential for a conservation easement.”