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Farm bill hearing will focus on conservation

Conservation will be the focus of the next Senate Ag Committee farm bill hearing.

It takes place tomorrow (Tuesday) on Capitol Hill.

One issue that may come up is whether conservation compliance should be a required for producers to buy crop insurance. 

The idea has been tossed around in recent months, but doesn’t seem to have a lot of support.  American Farm Bureau delegates, at their annual meeting in January, opted not to adopt policy language tying conservation compliance to crop insurance.

However, Brad Redlin with the conservation organization Izaak Walton League of America, says it makes a lot of sense.

“We feel that it’s the one thing that really does need to be added to this conservation plan for the next farm bill reauthorization,” Redlin says. “It’s time now to have a broader discussion about it.”

Also lobbying for the tie between conservation compliance and crop insurance is the organization called the Environmental Working Group (EWG).  EWG has just released a new report on the history and value of conservation compliance and argues that it’s a fair trade in exchange for crop-insurance premium subsidies.

 

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