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Conservation compliance needs tweaking

A new report by USDA’s Economic Research Service finds conservation compliance incentives in crop insurance programs are helping improve the environment, but ag leaders say the signup process needs improvement.

During a recent Senate Ag Committee farm bill hearing William Cole, chairman of the Crop Insurance Professionals Association, told lawmakers farmers can lose crop insurance coverage if they’re unfamiliar with the conservation requirement.  “It’s so prohibited that, especially our friends that have specialty crops in the Northwest—they might not have ever been in a program, and so they don’t really know they’re out of compliance, and then they miss a date and then they have the harsh penalties.”

Senate Ag Committee Ranking Member Debbie Stabenow says USDA has testified otherwise.  “The USDA testified in front of our Committee just last month that 99 percent of farmers are meeting the new conservation compliance requirements.”

Senate Ag Committee Chairman Pat Roberts says conservation compliance is unneeded, costly and burdensome for farmers.

USDA researchers say severing the link between conservation compliance and crop insurance premium subsidies would mean a 65 percent increase in the amount of highly erodible land on farms where compliance incentives are relatively low.

Researchers say over the past 30 years, soil erosion on farms has been greatly reduced, regardless if it was subject to meeting the conservation compliance requirement or not.  However, soil erosion was reduced almost 70 percent more on fields prone to water erosion that were required to meet compliance measures compared to similar fields not subject to compliance.

Farmers are required to use conservation measures on highly erodible land in order to be eligible for crop insurance coverage.

AUDIO: Senate Ag Committee farm bill hearing William Cole testifying