[Senate Hearing 112-691]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 112-691
STRENGTHENING CONSERVATION
THROUGH THE 2012 FARM BILL
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE,
NUTRITION AND FORESTRY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 28, 2012
__________
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Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry
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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION AND FORESTRY
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan, Chairwoman
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
TOM HARKIN, Iowa RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
KENT CONRAD, North Dakota THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi
MAX BAUCUS, Montana MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky
E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio MIKE JOHANNS, Nebraska
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
MICHAEL BENNET, Colorado JOHN THUNE, South Dakota
KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
Christopher J. Adamo, Majority Staff Director
Jonathan W. Coppess, Majority Chief Counsel
Jessica L. Williams, Chief Clerk
Michael J. Seyfert, Minority Staff Director
Anne C. Hazlett, Minority Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing(s):
Strengthening Conservation through the 2012 Farm Bill............ 1
----------
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS
Stabenow, Hon. Debbie, U.S. Senator from the State of Michigan,
Chairwoman, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry... 1
Roberts, Hon. Pat, U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas......... 3
Panel I
Nelson, Bruce, Administrator, Farm Service Agency, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC...................... 5
White, David, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC...................... 6
Panel II
Garber, Earl, President Elect, National Association of
Conservation Districts, Basile, LA............................. 40
Humphries, Becky, Director of Great Lakes/Atlantic Regional
Office, Ducks Unlimited, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI................... 33
Mattson, Carl, Farmer, Mattson Farms, Chester, MT................ 37
Mosel, Darrel, Farmer, Darrel Mosel Farm, Gaylord, MN............ 38
Stoskopf, Dean, Wheat Farmer, Stoskopf Farms, Hoisington, KS..... 35
Trandahl, Jeff, Executive Director and CEO, National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation, Washington, DC............................ 31
----------
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements:
Casey, Hon. Robert, Jr....................................... 52
Gillibrand, Hon. Kirsten..................................... 53
Lugar, Hon. Richard G........................................ 54
[Legislative language for Title II available from the Chief
Clerk]
Thune, Hon. John............................................. 57
Garber, Earl................................................. 59
Humphries, Becky............................................. 62
Mattson, Carl................................................ 68
Mosel, Darrel................................................ 73
Nelson, Bruce................................................ 80
Stoskopf, Dean............................................... 87
Trandahl, Jeff............................................... 91
White, David................................................. 98
Document(s) Submitted for the Record:
Stabenow, Hon. Debbie:
National Cotton Council, prepared statement.................. 118
State of Kansas, Office of the Governor, prepared statement.. 121
Partnership of Rangeland Trusts (PORT), prepared statement... 125
Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, prepared statement. 129
Various oranizations, prepared statement..................... 137
Various oranizations, prepared statement..................... 148
Bennet, Hon. Michael F.:
Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts, prepared statement........ 149
Question and Answer:
Stabenow, Hon. Debbie:
Written questions to Earl Garber............................. 158
Written questions to Becky Humphries......................... 165
Written questions to Carl Mattson............................ 171
Written questions to Darrel Mosel............................ 185
Written questions to Bruce Nelson............................ 192
Written questions to Jeff Trandahl........................... 212
Written questions to David White............................. 217
Roberts, Hon. Pat:
Written questions to Bruce Nelson............................ 193
Written questions to David White............................. 219
Bennet, Hon. Michael:
Written questions to Bruce Nelson............................ 197
Written questions to David White............................. 237
Casey, Hon. Robert, Jr.:
Written questions to David White............................. 233
Chambliss, Hon. Saxby:
Written questions to Bruce Nelson............................ 200
Written questions to David White............................. 241
Gillibrand, Hon. Kirsten:
Written questions to Bruce Nelson............................ 199
Written questions to David White............................. 238
Harkin, Hon. Tom:
Written questions to Earl Garber............................. 161
Written questions to Becky Humphries......................... 167
Written questions to Carl Mattson............................ 178
Written questions to Darrel Mosel............................ 187
Written questions to Bruce Nelson............................ 196
Written questions to Dean Stoskopf........................... 208
Written questions to Jeff Trandahl........................... 214
Written questions to David White............................. 232
Hoeven, Hon. John:
Written questions to David White............................. 244
Leahy, Hon. Patrick J.:
Written questions to Earl Garber............................. 158
Written questions to Becky Humphries......................... 165
Written questions to Carl Mattson............................ 173
Written questions to Darrel Mosel............................ 185
Written questions to Dean Stoskopf........................... 206
Written questions to Jeff Trandahl........................... 212
Written questions to David White............................. 229
Thune, Hon. John:
Written questions to Earl Garber............................. 164
Written questions to Becky Humphries......................... 169
Written questions to Carl Mattson............................ 182
Written questions to Darrel Mosel............................ 190
Written questions to Bruce Nelson............................ 202
Written questions to Dean Stoskopf........................... 210
Written questions to Jeff Trandahl........................... 216
Written questions to David White............................. 242
Garber, Earl:
Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow...... 158
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 161
Written response to questions from Hon. Patrick J. Leahy..... 158
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 164
Humphries, Becky:
Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow...... 165
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 167
Written response to questions from Hon. Patrick J. Leahy..... 165
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 169
Mattson, Carl:
Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow...... 171
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 178
Written response to questions from Hon. Patrick J. Leahy..... 173
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 183
Mosel, Darrel:
Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow...... 185
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 187
Written response to questions from Hon. Patrick J. Leahy..... 185
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 190
Nelson, Bruce:
Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow...... 192
Written response to questions from Hon. Pat Roberts.......... 194
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 196
Written response to questions from Hon. Michael Bennet....... 197
Written response to questions from Hon. Kirsten Gillibrand... 199
Written response to questions from Hon. Saxby Chambliss...... 200
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 202
Stoskopf, Dean:
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 208
Written response to questions from Hon. Patrick J. Leahy..... 206
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 210
Trandahl, Jeff:
Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow...... 212
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 214
Written response to questions from Hon. Patrick J. Leahy..... 212
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 216
White, David:
Written response to questions from Hon. Debbie Stabenow...... 217
Written response to questions from Hon. Pat Roberts.......... 219
Written response to questions from Hon. Patrick J. Leahy..... 230
Written response to questions from Hon. Tom Harkin........... 233
Written response to questions from Hon. Robert Casey, Jr..... 234
Written response to questions from Hon. Michael Bennet....... 237
Written response to questions from Hon. Kirsten Gillibrand... 239
Written response to questions from Hon. Saxby Chambliss...... 241
Written response to questions from Hon. John Thune........... 242
Written response to questions from Hon. John Hoeven.......... 245
STRENGTHENING CONSERVATION
THROUGH THE 2012 FARM BILL
----------
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
United States Senate,
Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry,
Washington, DC
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in
room SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Debbie Stabenow,
Chairwoman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Stabenow, Harkin, Baucus, Klobuchar,
Bennet, Gillibrand, Roberts, Chambliss, Boozman, Grassley, and
Thune.
STATEMENT OF HON. DEBBIE STABENOW, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF MICHIGAN, CHAIRWOMAN, COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION
AND FORESTRY
Chairwoman Stabenow. The Senate Committee on Agriculture,
Nutrition and Forestry will come to order. I want to apologize
in advance. As you can tell, I am struggling with my voice
today. I hope it is going to hold out to get all the way
through the hearing. If not, I am sure my partner and Ranking
Member's voice will be able to hold up throughout the hearing.
But we are so pleased to have all of you here today, and we are
continuing, as you know, our 2012 farm bill hearings.
For us in Michigan, protecting the Great Lakes is part of
our DNA, and that is why conservation is so important, and we
are very pleased to have everyone in town during Great Lakes
Week. And so we wanted to hold this hearing during Great Lake
Week to emphasize the importance to us in the conservation
title of the wonderful partnerships that are occurring around
the Great Lakes as well as so many other parts of the country
to protect our soil and our water and our air.
Conservation, as we all know, helps farmers and ranchers to
grow healthy and affordable crops while taking care of the land
and water. And we all benefit from the commitment our farmers
have to the land. I have seen this firsthand as I have visited
farms all across Michigan. Thanks to easements made possible by
the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program and local
partnerships, Shoreland Fruit Company knew they could keep
investing in their cherry-processing plant because area fruit
farmers had made a commitment to keep their land in
agriculture, ensuring a stable supply. Shoreland was able to
expand production and create jobs even in a difficult economy.
Similarly, Burnette Foods, an apple-processing company that
employs 500 people on the west side of Michigan, benefits from
the success of easements that keep land in farming and out of
residential development. They were able to purchase the last
surviving cherry-processing plant left on Old Mission
Peninsula, which is an absolutely beautiful place in Michigan.
I had the opportunity to speak at a Michigan Pheasants
Forever banquet just a few weeks ago where they are doing
incredible work with the Pheasant Restoration Initiative
through the Voluntary Public Access Program we included in the
last farm bill. Working with volunteers, with farmers, they are
helping to make sure that hunting remains one of the great,
great traditions in Michigan.
But it is more than just our way of life. There are more
than 1 million hunters and anglers in Michigan who directly and
indirectly support more than 46,000 jobs in Michigan alone.
I have said over and over again that the farm bill is a
jobs bill, and that is as true of the conservation title as it
is for anything else in the farm bill.
Of course, the most direct beneficiary of conservation is
our agricultural lands, which must remain healthy to handle
future demands on our working agricultural landscapes. While
agricultural exports are strong today, global food needs are
expected to double, as we know, as the population grows to 9
billion people by 2050. The pressure to produce more on the
same or fewer acres while still facing weather, price, and
input risks beyond their control will stress agricultural
producers for decades to come. Working lands conservation sits
at the very core of our ability to meet these production
challenges without sacrificing our vital natural resources.
As we know, farming is measured in generations. The most
successful farmers are those that can pass along a viable
farming operation to their children and to their grandchildren.
And no farming operation can be prosperous without good-quality
soil and clean water in sufficient quantities. That is why
conservation is such an important part of the farm bill.
As we continue our work, this farm bill must focus on
making our program simpler, locally driven, science-based, and
flexible enough to ensure that taxpayers' investments in
conservation are enabling agriculture to remain healthy and
productive across the diverse landscapes of our great Nation so
that we can be certain those 1.3 billion acres produce clean
water, abundant and safe food, wildlife habitat, and a quality
of life for future generations. That is our goal in the
conservation title of the farm bill.
Now, before I turn it over to my friend and Ranking Member,
Senator Roberts, for his opening remarks, I would like to ask
unanimous consent to enter a few items into the official
record: first, written testimony from the Michigan land
conservation organizations on behalf of the Land Trust Alliance
and the American Farmland Trust; second, a letter from the
Partnership of Rangeland Trusts and the National Cattlemen's
Beef Association; a letter from ten commodity groups in support
of the framework that we put together on the conservation title
last fall; and, last, a letter from 643 conservation groups
representing all 50 States in support of a strong conservation
title. If there are no objections, these items will be entered
into the record. We thank these organizations for their very
strong support.
[The following information can be found on pages 125
through 137 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Now I will turn to Senator Roberts.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAT ROBERTS, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
KANSAS
Senator Roberts. Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Today's
hearing is an important step in our farm bill process, and I
welcome Administrator Nelson and Chief White. I look forward to
their insight.
Madam Chairman, given your problems with laryngitis, I
would be happy to always pinch-hit to read the Chairwoman's
remarks anytime.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you.
Senator Roberts. I would not change any adjective or
adverb.
[Laughter.]
Senator Roberts. I might add a few recommendations.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Right, right.
Senator Roberts. During our work last fall on the
conservative title of the farm bill, I appreciated that both
the NRCS and FSA leaders made themselves available to our staff
to answer technical questions. I appreciate the longstanding
commitment of the agencies to detail staff to work through
legislative provisions in the complex working of the farm bill.
Thank you.
Let me stress again that good progress was made on the
conservation title last fall, and I look forward to again
working with the Chairwoman and all of the Committee members to
continue to refine that work. We have a good, solid starting
point.
Our current conservation title provides a variety of
program options for producers. Programs should be flexible to
meet producer needs and guided by State and local priorities.
A single program will not meet the needs of all producers,
but we have gone too far, in my view, in the other direction.
We now have duplicative programs that have become more and more
complicated. It is really an alphabet soup when I look at all
of these programs.
My goal during this farm bill process is to help maintain
options for producers while simplifying the programs for the
producers and those tasked with the implementation. One of the
most important programs in this title, Madam Chairwoman, is
EQIP I know you know that--the Environmental Quality Incentives
Program. This program helps producers address environmental
regulations. The assistance that the USDA provides is very
important to help producers navigate a complex web of
Government mandates.
The number one concern I hear from producers is
overregulation. ``Our producers are repeatedly faced with
layers of regulations that simply do not make sense.'' That is
a quote from the President about a year ago. Pesticide permits,
child labor, waters of the U.S., dioxins, spilt milk, CAFOs,
and the list goes on. I see Dean and Mary Anne Stoskopf sitting
in the hearing right over there from Hoisington, Kansas,
America. Welcome to your Nation's capital. Thank you for
providing us with your perspective. Thank you as well, Dean,
for your longstanding service as a leader in both State and
national producer organizations.
Now, I do not want to give away too much of what Dean will
say, but he is going to talk about the Conservation Reserve
Program and the importance of the program in Kansas, especially
with the recent drought. CRP is a vital program option for
producers, but we need to allow our producers to have choices.
Out in the high plains, we want to make sure that the soil
stays on the farm. CRP can help, and I wanted to ensure that
producers have that option in the coming years.
High commodity prices and new technology might change the
participation in the program, but it is still an important
option to help protect highly erodible soils. I look forward to
hearing from our witnesses today, using their insight to help
guide our work. The conservation title has changed drastically
over the last 15 years both in number and complexity of
programs and the size of the budget. We are now spending more
than twice what we did back in 2001 for conservation programs,
and conservation spending is predicted to top the commodity
title spending in the next few years.
Now, you cannot have this kind of growth without learning
some lessons about what is working and what is not and how
producers are reacting to the programs and then the capability
of the Department to implement the programs quickly and
efficiently. We are in a very difficult budget situation--
everybody knows that--in crafting this farm bill, and we must
look at reducing the program overlap and focus in on what
works. The input from today's panels will help guide us.
Madam Chairwoman, I know we have a lot of ground to cover
today. I ask that a statement from Kansas Governor and our
former colleague in the Senate, Sam Brownback, be added to the
record, and I thank you very kindly.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Without objection, so ordered.
[The statement of Hon. Sam Brownback can be found on page
121 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Well, we have excellent panelists this
morning, and we welcome everyone. We are going to start with
two real leaders in this area, and we thank you both, Mr.
Nelson and Chief White. Let me introduce both of you, and then
Chief White does have a slide presentation, so we have given
you a special privilege this morning. Instead of the
traditional 5 minutes, we have given you 10 minutes, and we are
happy to do it because we appreciate the information you are
going to provide.
Of course, members are welcome to submit a opening
statement for the record as well this morning.
Our first witness on the panel is Mr. Bruce Nelson,
Administrator of the Farm Service Agency, a position he has
held since July of 2011. He hails from Fort Benton, Montana,
and has held various positions with FSA within the State,
including most recently as State Executive Director. He is a
graduate of the University of Montana, spent many summers
working on a family farm. We very much appreciate your efforts
and welcome you today.
Let me also introduce Chief Dave White of the Natural
Resources Conservation Service at USDA. Chief White began his
career with the Natural Resources Conservation Service over
3two years ago and was named Chief in March of 2009. No
stranger to our Committee, he has been very active in the farm
bill process, having worked on the 2002 and 2008 farm bills,
first detailed to Senator Lugar and then to Senator Harkin.
And so we welcome both of you today, and, Mr. Nelson, you
can proceed.
STATEMENT OF BRUCE NELSON, ADMINISTRATOR, FARM SERVICE AGENCY,
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Nelson. Good morning, Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member
Roberts, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to discuss the Farm Service Agency's conservation
programs in light of the 2012 farm bill.
Let me begin by talking about FSA's largest conservation
program, the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP. CRP provides
annual rental payments to farmers and ranchers to establish
long-term conservation cover. CRP has a legacy of successfully
protecting the Nation's natural resources while providing
significant economic and environmental benefits to rural
communities across the United States. CRP protects our most
environmentally sensitive lands from erosion and sedimentation
and helps sustain groundwater, lakes, rivers, ponds, and
streams.
Cropland regularly enters and leaves CRP as new land is
enrolled and as CRP contracts expire. There are now 29.7
million acres in CRP, down nearly 20 percent from fiscal year
2007. With contracts on 6.5 million acres scheduled to expire
at the end of fiscal year 2012, USDA recently announced a new
CRP general sign-up that will begin on March 12th and end on
April 6th.
In addition to CRP general sign-up, FSA offers year-round
continuous sign-up, which now constitutes about 18 percent of
the total acres enrolled. I would add that continuous sign-up
has become a larger portion of overall enrollment in recent
years, and we are working hard to promote these continuous
programs.
Most recently, on February 18th, Secretary Vilsack
announced a new Highly Erodible Land Initiative, which will
allow up to 750,000 acres of the most highly erodible land to
enroll in CRP via continuous sign-up.
Given budgetary pressures, the fiscal year 2013 President's
budget proposes capping CRP at 30 million acres. We believe
that is a fair way to achieve an estimated $977 million in
budget savings over 10 years while maintaining the CRP program
at a level where it can continue to deliver substantial
environmental benefits to producers.
FSA and NRCS administer several programs that provide
emergency conservation assistance to producers. For example,
the Emergency Conservation Program, or ECP, provides emergency
cost-share funding to rehabilitate damaged farmland. I am
pleased to report that we have allocated more than $102 million
nationwide to address damage from floods, hurricanes,
tornadoes, wildfires, and other natural disasters under ECP in
fiscal year 2012. This is in addition to the $91 million
allocated to States to address damage from significant
disasters last fiscal year.
The Transition Incentives Program, or TIP, which was
created in the 2008 farm bill, has been a big success. Over $20
million of the $25 million statutory limit has already been
obligated to help transition CRP land from retired farmers to
beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers who use sustainable
farming techniques. In addition, FSA is currently reviewing $1
million in pending requests.
Because of a concern about high demand resulting from the
amount of CRP acreage expiring and high commodity prices, TIP
sign-up was suspended last Friday until steps can be taken to
ensure that the $25 million statutory limit is not exceeded.
The Emergency Forest Restoration Program, or EFRP, which
was also created in the 2008 farm bill, helps owners of non-
industrial private forestland carry out emergency measures to
restore land damaged by natural disasters. Since the program
began, more than $24 million has been allocated to the States
to carry out the program.
Members of the Committee, in closing, FSA has an important
set of conservation programs that are uniquely suited to our
farmers and ranchers. We look forward to working closely with
Congress to continue to achieve highly targeted, highly
impactful programs to American producers.
Madam Chairwoman, this concludes my statement, and I would
be happy to answer any questions you or members of the
Committee might have.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Bruce Nelson. can be found on
page 80 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. We appreciate
your leadership.
Chief White, welcome again.
STATEMENT OF DAVID WHITE, CHIEF, NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION
SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. White. Madam Chair, thank you, Senator Roberts,
distinguished members of the Committee. It is really great to
be here. I think your topic, strengthening conservation through
the farm bill, is certainly apropos. And just as a personal
word, I am so grateful that you, this Committee and you as
individuals, are the ones undertaking this effort because I
have a lot of confidence you are going to do what is right for
the environment, what is right for the producers, what is right
for the taxpayers, and what is right for those little Americans
that we are going to hand this thing over to in a few years.
You have my written testimony. I am just going to sum up
the recommendations I made in my written testimony briefly.
There are three of them. I am just going to echo what you two
have stated in your opening statements.
One, we need to streamline these conservation programs,
including consolidation, if necessary. I realize every program
has a purpose, every program has a constituency, every program
has a goal, and they are all worthwhile. And I think it is
possible to hold true to those and yet still achieve the
streamlining and the consolidation that would make it much
easier to implement.
Two, I would plead for increased flexibility that you
mentioned, Senator Stabenow, so we can better address our
conservation needs at the local, State, regional, and national
levels.
And, three, Senator Roberts, you mentioned budgets. It
would be so wonderful if we could have some increased emphasis
on partnerships in working with local and State government and
non-governmental organizations so we can get a greater return
on the conservation investment. I know you are going to do the
best that you can, but increasing partnerships would be
wonderful.
You can be proud of the work we are doing around the
country. You mentioned I have a presentation, so I am going to
devolve to that, because one picture is worth a thousand words.
I am going to take you around the country and I am going to
show you what your money is buying and what we are doing on the
landscape. [Slides begins]
One of the big problems we have is nutrients. What you are
seeing here is an infrared reader. It reads the chlorophyll
level in the plant. It can adjust the nutrients being applied
once per second. On the fly. Now we can put exactly what is
needed right when we need it, on the fly in the field. This is
going to have huge impacts on our water and better efficiency
for our producers in the future.
This is Maryland. This is a basket filled with steel slag.
It is a waste product from slag. This pond catches the runoff
from four poultry houses. We are finding out the steel slag
absorbs phosphorous like crazy. This has got huge potential for
us in the future.
We are also looking at gypsum filters. This is actually a
ditch. The tile is there. Dirt is put over it. It looks like
that afterwards. It is going to have amazing impacts on getting
phosphorous and nitrogen out of water leaving the field.
Turning to Montana, this is a fairly typical Western water
diversion. This is a major headache for producers. It catches
every piece of debris that comes down the creek. Fish get
entrained. It is being replaced with things like this. There is
a perforated pipe under there. No maintenance, easy fish
passage. Cows like it. The rancher gets his water rights.
Senator Roberts, you mentioned regulation. This bird is
called a sage grouse. This bird is on a candidate list. If this
bird is listed as threatened or endangered, ranching as we know
it in the Western United States comes to a halt because of the
checkerboard ownership pattern.
We are embarked on an effort to keep this bird from being
listed. We are working with a lot of partners, like Pheasants
Forever, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Western
Association of Conservation Agencies and conservation
districts. The Fish and Wildlife Service is a key partner. And
we think we can do it. This is the range of this bird. And if
you look at the hot colors here, 75 percent of the birds live
in 25 percent of the area. If we can protect these core areas,
we can have energy development--oil, gas, wind, solar. We can
have residential development. Our cities can grow. It is just
doable. And it is not high-tech stuff.
One of our big problems is bird strikes on these barbed
wire fences, and this is an issue with the lesser prairie
chicken as well. It is not rocket science. This is vinyl trim
siding cut in 3-inch pieces, snapped over the wire. We know
that if you mark a mile of fence, you are going to prevent four
to five strikes. In the last two years, we have marked or moved
350 miles of fences. Our science says this is equal to saving
the entire male sage grouse population in North Dakota, South
Dakota, Washington, Alberta, and Saskatchewan combined two
times. Low cost, too.
We know that if we increase our grass height two inches on
a rangeland, it will equate to a 10-percent increase in
population growth. In the last two years, we have installed
that on 1.3 million acres. It is good for the rancher, it is
good for the cows, it is good for the birds. You are talking
about an area nearly the size of the State of Delaware, and
that is only in two years, and we are just getting started.
Let us turn to the Central Valley of California it is
arguably the most productive ag region in the United States.
There is not one of us that has not had produce from this
region, whether it is grapes, lettuce, olives, onions,
broccoli, whatever it would be. These farmers are under the
worst regulation I have ever seen as far as air quality. This
is the farm of a guy named Don Cameron. When I went to his
place, he had 30 irrigation pumps lined up. They all had a hole
cut in the block because they were too polluting for the
California Air Quality Resources Board. Using Conservation
Innovation Grants quality funds we have been able to help
producers like Don Cameron. We have reduce nitrogen oxides
emissions the equivalent of removing over 500,000 cars from the
roads of California a year. If we keep this up for 2 more
years, we are going to obviate the need for any further
regulation of agriculture.
This is Colorado, a rangeland fire; one year later.
This is Carroll County, Maryland, runoff from a dairy
producer, a Chesapeake Bay issue. That is what it looks like
today.
This is Georgia, a critical area in front of a poultry
house, the first year.
This is Indiana, runoff from a cropland field. This is what
it looks like today.
Senator Harkin, this is Iowa, a feed lot, major league
manure problems from this beef operation. This is what it looks
like today. This producer will not be regulated. He can produce
beef, and he can do it in an environmentally sound manner.
Here is timber stand improvement. I had to stand back
taking this photo. When you get in there, you cannot even see
anything. A fire goes through, mow, it gets up in the crowns.
We have seen soil baked into virtual rock. Go in, clean it up.
These trees are naturally resilient to fire. A fire goes
through, it stays low, trees are a lot healthier.
This is Kansas, highly acidic range soil in Kansas. Working
with the producer, it looks like this today.
Michigan, Senator Stabenow, look at the cows up in the
right-hand corner. We had to put a heavy use area in there. We
rehabilitated the pasture. It looks like that today.
Riparian area in Minnesota, farming right up next to the
creek. We put a little buffer in there, and that is what it
looks like today.
Here is a big problem in Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Kansas.
This is from Nebraska. It is the eastern red cedar encroachment
on the grasslands.
Here is a Playa Lake in Nebraska. This individual wanted to
restore the Playa Lake. He enrolled it in the Wetlands Reserve
Program. Here it is today.
Oh, my gosh. Senator Gillibrand, this is New York. I do not
know where to start. These are some major league issues: manure
runoff, no forage. Working with the producer, this is what it
looked like last year in 2011. This is the first year. This guy
is going to be okay. It is going to look even better this year.
Stream bank stabilization in North Dakota, this is using
riprap, a harder science.
This is streambank stabilization in Colorado using bio-
engineering, a much softer approach.
Ohio, this is the gully forming next to a cropland field.
This is what it looks like today.
South Dakota, this producer needed irrigation water for his
crops. He also wanted some wildlife habitat.
This is an interesting one. This is Pennsylvania. An
orchard grower wanted to increase pollinators next to his
orchard. This is what it looks like today.
This is interesting, Senator Boozman. This is Arkansas.
This is a World War II vet, he was a rice grower, been farming
this land for more than 60 years. A couple years ago, he could
not get a dependable source of water. He had to give up farming
rice. Using the AWEP program, we were able to construct a
reservoir. He is back to growing rice. He is going to make it.
He is ready to hand the farm over to his kids.
Back to Minnesota, a critical area here. This is right
after construction. This is all covered in grass now.
I am going to end up with this Deepwater Horizon stuff.
Remember those horrible pictures, the pit of your stomach when
you saw that stuff flowing out. We had a call from Ducks
Unlimited and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. I see
Jeff Trandahl is up here next. They are telling me we have got
50 million birds coming down the Mississippi flyway, every
single one of them is headed for the gulf, and at the same time
we have this horrible drought where natural wetlands are drying
up. So we decided that in these green areas we would ask
producers, ``Will you help us create instant wetlands to
provide some habitat for these birds that are flying south?''
The response was overwhelming. We thought we would try for
100,000 acres. We actually had over 1 million acres offered,
primarily by rice growers and soybean/cotton producers. We were
able to cobble together enough money to do 471,000 acres. We
disk the field, flood it with water. A couple months later,
this is what it looked like. The Mississippi State University
told us that more than one-third of all the duck energy days
that entire year came from these 500,000 acres, and there are
millions of acres of wetland. But most of the productivity came
from these fields.
The key thing about this is these are working lands. They
are growing rice, they are growing cotton, they are growing
soybeans, they are growing catfish, they are growing crawfish
in the summertime. And in the wintertime they were providing
habitat for wildlife.
Do not let anybody tell you that you cannot have
environmental progress in harmony with agricultural production,
because we can do it.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That concludes my remarks, with 5
seconds to go.
[Laughter.]
[The prepared statement of David White can be found on page
98 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much. Needless to say,
it is very impressive and exciting to see this.
I am going to start with a very simple question because
there is a lot of debate about this. But in terms of
conservation, are our farmers and ranchers better off today
than they were 20 years ago?
Mr. White. Unquestionably. I think all the research from
our Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) results
show, yes, they are. They are making a heck of a lot of
environmental progress.
Chairwoman Stabenow. So what can we do in this important
farm bill, the largest investment our country makes in
conservation on working lands, what can we do to build on the
improvements that we have seen in these pictures?
Mr. White. Actually, if you would kind of go forward with
everything I heard and know about the farm bill conservation
title that you did in the previous thing last fall, I think you
guys knocked it out of the park. That would be my suggestion,
if you could move forward with that.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you.
Mr. Nelson, let me ask you about the future of CRP. With
record-high land prices paired with high commodity prices, we
are seeing, of course, significant pressure to keep land out of
the CRP program, and this has been a great success story as
well over the last 25 years. In Michigan, we have seen
particular success with the continuous type practices under the
program.
As our farmers face growing pressure to plant more, what
adjustments to the current program should this Committee
consider to ensure that the program continues to protect our
critical areas effectively? Whether it is in the heart of the
Dust Bowl country or prime farmland in the thumb of Michigan,
what should we be doing?
Mr. Nelson. Well, thank you for that question because that
is kind of the heart of the issue here, because as you pointed
out and as Ranking Member Roberts pointed out, we are working
in a time of record-high commodity prices. And while that is a
good thing and we are proud of the fact we have record-high
commodity prices, there are implications to that in terms of
producers' willingness to participate voluntarily in these
programs.
So I think, first of all, you have already talked about,
both you and Senator Roberts, the need to streamline the
programs, and we look forward to working with you and Chief
White and NRCS and the other organizations in order to do that
during the farm bill process.
I am a third-generation Montana farmer, and so what is
important to me is not how many toolboxes we have; it is how
many tools that we have. And we need tools in Montana that are
different than you have got in Kansas or Iowa or Michigan. And
so the important thing in this is not, again, the number of
toolboxes. It is how many tools we have so that we can tailor
the conservation programs for our individual farming and
ranching operations.
And so in that, I think we need to continue diversification
and use of targeted approaches so that we make sure we are
getting the biggest bang for the buck. For example, the
Secretary just announced the Highly Erodible Land Initiative.
We believe that is a very good tool for farmers who are dealing
with highly erodible land. We are talking about land here with
an erodibility index over 20. That means it is eroding at 4 to
5 times the tolerance rate. In addition to that, it is land
that is less productive. On the average, it is 20 to 30 percent
less productive than the rest of the land on their places.
And so this gives them the opportunity, as they need to, to
fit the needs of their operation and enroll at any time, not
just when we have a general sign-up. And, again, this is land
that we really need to pay special attention to, particularly
out in my part of the country, where land blows a lot, frankly.
The second thing is I think we need to continue to expand
our partnerships with other levels of government and with
private organizations, nongovernmental organizations. Under the
CREP program, for example, the 20-percent financial
contribution of local governments or other entities leverages
and stretches Federal dollars. And right now, with the budget
situation that we have, every way that we can stretch our
Federal dollars is important.
In addition to that, the memorandums of understanding which
we have developed with private organizations such as Pheasants
Forever that make technical assistance, their technical
expertise and assistance, available to our agencies and
producers is extremely beneficial.
So, in a word, we need to increase our targeting to those
most environmentally sensitive lands.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Senator Roberts?
Senator Roberts. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I ask unanimous
consent that a statement from Senator Lugar be included in the
record at this point.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Without objection.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Richard Lugar can be found
on page 54 in the appendix.]
Senator Roberts. Administrator Nelson, last year, Kansans
faced an extreme drought, and I hope we do not go through that
this year, but the prospects do not look very good. Producers
were granted access to CRP acres for emergency grazing. Of
course, the effects of the drought were not uniform across the
State. They were much worse in the southwest corner, sort of a
bell-shaped kind of situation--Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas.
The impacts to the livestock industry were devastating.
Some operations lost decades of their genetics and investment.
Producers that hayed their CRP acres then were required to
destroy the hay rather than provide it to livestock producers
in the State that were in very critical need for forage. Then
we had hay coming down from Canada. It made no sense.
What is your policy on destroying hay harvested from CRP?
And how can we make sure that during these types of emergency
situations we can be more responsive to ag producers?
Mr. Nelson. Thanks, Senator. I know about droughts. We have
those in Montana. My wife happens to be here today. It is the
first time she has had the opportunity to come and see me at
one of these, so I have actually got the toughest critic of all
out in the audience here today. But she can attest to how I
reacted to the drought in Montana back in the 1980s.
With respect to emergency haying and grazing, producers can
donate the hay under emergency haying and grazing, and I know
in Montana we have worked out a policy within national
procedure so that producers in exactly the kind of situations
that you are talking about can conduct the emergency haying and
grazing on their CRP and can donate the hay. So it is not
required to be destroyed under all circumstances.
So we would look forward to working with you on that issue
in your State, as I know that we did last fall, and any other
member who, unfortunately, might face those kind of drought
situations in the future.
Senator Roberts. I appreciate that. There are 6.5 million
acres in contracts will expire from CRP. How is the Department
preparing for the large number of acres exiting the program?
How are the various agencies trying to coordinate to assist
producers with their next steps? Are there ways we can really
facilitate the transition of these acres?
Mr. Nelson. Well, as I indicated before, one of the new
things that we have that I think is very beneficial to the
producer is with the memorandums of understanding that we have
been able to develop with outside organizations, the technical
assistance of their biologists is available out there to
producers to help along with NRCS and other technical service
providers so that producers can make good choices about whether
to re-enroll land in CRP or move it into production using,
hopefully, other conservation techniques.
The Transition Incentive Program is another program I
mentioned in my oral testimony, and we are a little bit,
frankly, concerned right now because, as I indicated, there is
a $25 million cap on that. We spent a little over $20 million
right now. We have another about $1 million in requests in. In
that 6.5 million acres, there is over 68,000 contract holders.
My point is there are a lot of folks out there with 68,000 CRP
contracts expiring who we think would have an interest in the
Transition Incentive Program over the coming months. We have
got to make sure that we do not overspend, but, you know, it is
a great opportunity for some producers right now. But their
ability to take advantage of it right now will be limited by
the funds available.
Senator Roberts. I appreciate that. I am running out of
time.
Chief White----
Chairwoman Stabenow. Chief White had----
Mr. White. Can I respond to that, too?
Senator Roberts. Well, no, I am going to ask you another
question, and then you can do that, too, or show me another
show, whichever way you want to do it.
[Laughter.]
Senator Roberts. CRP acres expiring this year, are there
options for producers to use NRCS programs to help transition
out of CRP but perhaps keep the acres and grass? That is
terribly important. In Kansas we had producers interested in
perimeter fencing on CRP, so my question is: Can producers take
this action under EQIP? In other words can a producer get ready
while under contract and transition in the last year of the
contract with the fencing and the water wells? If you do not do
that at the end of the fiscal year, you are going to end up in
a situation where you are in winter, and then you are stuck.
What is your answer?
Mr. White. That is what I was going to talk about. Yes. We
listened to you. We changed EQIP policy. We will do perimeter
fences around highly erodible land. We will put in pipelines.
We will put in stock watering tanks. We will help put in cross
fences, and how you could help is right now you cannot get a
payment for the same land. So if land is enrolled in CRP, you
cannot put an EQIP contract on it. But if you could give us
some flexibility, like if a producer tells Bruce, ``I am going
to leave the CRP,'' at that point in time, if we can get him in
an EQIP contract, let us work to get it installed, get him
paid, contract expires September 30th; October 1, turn the cows
in.
Senator Roberts. All right. You just hit a home run, and my
time has expired.
[Laughter.]
Senator Roberts. I would just ask that the rest of my
questions be made part of the record.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Without objection.
[The questions of Hon. Pat Roberts can be found on page 219
of the appendix.:]
Chairwoman Stabenow. I would just comment, Chief White,
that it is the flexibility you are talking about that we have
been working so hard on as we put together proposals.
Mr. White. Yes, Senator.
Chairwoman Stabenow. I want to turn now to Senator Harkin,
and let me just thank Senator Harkin publicly for really being
such a leader in this area. I do not think we would be where we
are today in many of these areas without your leadership, so I
thank you.
Senator Harkin. Well, thank you very much for those kinds
words, Madam Chair. And thank you both, Mr. Nelson and Chief
White, for your service and for your great leadership in this
vital area.
We have made great progress in conservation in this
country, looking back, going back to post-World War II and on.
We have had our ups and downs, of course, a lot of it having to
do with prices and income. But we have made some mistakes, and
we did some different things, and I think we have learned a lot
as we have gone along.
But we are at a point in time, I think, where we are
looking at a rather long period, at least in the future, at
least I hope so, of continued high prices for our grains and
oilseeds in a broad context. So I think all the future looks
very good for income on farms. How that is going to impact our
conservation service is really a real question.
Again, while we have made a lot of progress, there are some
real serious questions out there about how we are doing in
terms of water quality, runoff, and soil erosion. The National
Resources Inventory from the NRCS reported that in 2007 just
over 100 million acres of U.S. cropland was still eroding at
greater than a sustainable rate. That is one-fourth. So one-
fourth of our Nation's cropland, according to Chief White's
organization, is still eroding at greater than a sustainable
rate. So we have got to pay attention to that, and where is
that land and how do we focus on it.
The U.S. Geologic Survey reported last year that nitrate
transport to the Gulf of Mexico--and I thought that is what you
were going to talk about when you put that thing up there of
the gulf region--was 10 percent higher in 2008 than in 1980. In
other words, it is going up rather than going down. The U.S.
Geologic Survey reported there has been no consistent declines
in nitrate levels in the Mississippi River Basin in nearly a
30-year period.
So, again, while, yes, we have made a lot of great
progress, I hope that there is evolving and I hope you can
reassure me that there is a strategy at the Department for
looking ahead, at least in the two areas of the erosion on the
quarter of that--over the sustainable rate and how we are
focusing on that; and, secondly, in terms of water quality in
the Mississippi River Basin. Is there a good strategy looking
at those kind of two elements that sort of stick out as areas
where we have not really--we have not reached the pinnacle of
success?
Mr. White. Sir, you are right and--you are right, Senator,
and we do have more remaining.
I would point out to you that in that same National
Resources Inventory (NRI) study you quoted, we also show a 40-
percent reduction in soil erosion over that 25-year period----
Senator Harkin. Absolutely.
Mr. White. --which is absolutely astounding.
Senator Harkin. Absolutely true.
Mr. White. Our Conservation Effects Assessment Project is
showing that farmers have done a lot. Sediment would be double
the problem it is now if it were not for voluntary
conservation. But that said, it is showing where we need areas
to work, and it is primarily in nitrogen and phosphorus in the
nutrient reduction, whether it is in the Great Lakes, whether
it is in the gulf, or wherever it would be, the Chesapeake Bay,
Puget Sound. And I am much more bullish on this than a lot of
people. I think we can solve these things and do it in a
voluntary, incentive-based manner using these programs.
In 2008 farm bill, Congress reauthorized the Resource
Conservation Act. That assessment has been completed. The
Department is in the final stages of working on the National
Conservation Program which will outline the strategy USDA will
use. That should be ready in a couple months, sir.
So if we can keep the voluntary, incentive-based, I am
confident we can work on these things.
Senator Harkin. Let me just ask you, can you tell me more,
Chief White, about the aggregate numbers for the first three
CSP enrollments in 2009, 2010, and 2011? Are you pleased with
the demand for the program? And how about the division of
participation relative to the different types of use--cropland,
pasture, range, forest, and the different types of farming? So,
again, what about the aggregate numbers? Are you pleased with
the demand for----
Mr. White. I am stunned with the demand. The law allows us
to enroll 12.7 million acres each year. We now have over 37
million acres in the Conservation Stewardship Program, making
it the largest program by land area in the arsenal. This last
sign-up, Senator, because of budget reductions, we can only
enroll a little over 10 million acres. We have an estimated 19
million acres offered. So we are going to leave 9 million acres
that will not be able to be enrolled.
That program is revamped, it is revised. I think we are--I
would quote my drill sergeant, but I could not, but we are
taking names and doing okay with that.
Senator Harkin. Senator Roberts is an ex-marine. He
understands that.
Mr. White. I apologize. That was inappropriate.
Senator Harkin. No. that is okay.
Mr. White. I think it is a great future.
Senator Roberts. Semper Fi.
Mr. White. If you look at EQIP, you are talking the bricks-
and-mortar program. If you are looking at CSP, you are talking
about moving people to the higher-level management. You are not
just talking conservation tillage. You are talking about
continuous never-till.
I think that the CSP is going to equip our producers. It is
where the cutting edge is going to become the mainstream. As we
look at 9 billion people coming, as we look at increasing our
production by 70 percent, they will need those management tools
that are being pioneered in the CSP.
Senator Harkin. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Senator Thune?
Senator Thune. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you
for holding this hearing. Thank you all for being with us
today.
Let me just begin by saying that in order for agriculture
to maintain its current role as one of the few shining stars in
our economy, our Committee has a tremendous responsibility to
create agricultural policy that not only provides an adequate
safety net but that also keeps agricultural production
sustainable and not damaging to the environment. I know that is
what you all are tasked with. And what we have seen with the
current higher-than-normal commodity prices is land prices
going to new record levels. Higher land prices drive farmers to
utilize every possible acre to its maximum production
capability, so we have got farmers who over the years have
proven themselves to be excellent stewards of their land, and
conservation title programs that we have included in the
previous farm bills have provided an excellent assortment of
conservation tools that are enabling farmers and ranchers
economically viable alternatives to producing crops on some of
these marginal and fragile lands.
However, in today's production agriculture environment, we
are experiencing thousands of acres of non-cropland and
grasslands converted to cropland, wetlands drained, and crops
being raised on this land. The outcome of these practices, or
at least one outcome for the first time in history, is that
crop insurance indemnities have exceeded $10 billion for 1
year, and that was the 2011 crop year.
So as we develop and modify programs for the 2012 farm
bill, we need to strive for balance and not diminish the
effectiveness of the conservation title. It is imperative that
we keep conservation title programs effective and economically
viable for producers so that they can continue maintaining
their long history of excellent land stewardship.
Our farmers and ranchers have the responsibility over the
next few decades of feeding not only this country's citizens
but much of the world's as well, and we simply cannot overlook
the important role the farm bill conservation title programs
play in enabling production agriculture to remain sustainable
into the future.
So, Mr. Nelson, what I wanted to ask you, in your written
testimony you had provided that pheasant hunting annually
brings about $250 million in economic activity to South Dakota,
and there is no doubt but that CRP has played a significant
role in this economic activity by providing much needed habitat
for not only pheasants but also several other game and non-game
species of wildlife in South Dakota.
South Dakota currently has about 1.1 million acres enrolled
in CRP, which is down from our high of 1.5 million acres. South
Dakota is going to have an additional 224,000 acres expire this
year and more than 106,000 acres next year. South Dakota's
Game, Fish, and Parks Department tells me that the State needs
1.5 million acres to maintain game bird populations at current
levels.
In order to keep South Dakota's CRP acres at adequate
levels, the State needs more than general CRP sign-ups. It also
needs additional acres in the SAFE program, which is the State
Acres for Wildlife Enhancement, and in the duck nesting
habitat, or CP37 program.
Along with conducting a general CRP sign-up, will FSA be
increasing South Dakota's allotment of SAFE and CP37 acres in
the near future?
Mr. Nelson. Senator, we do review those allotments of SAFE
acres on an annual basis, and we have been adjusting them among
the States. And so we will be happy to look at the request from
South Dakota for additional acres and will work with you and
your staff on that.
Senator Thune. How about CP37?
Mr. Nelson. And CP37.
Senator Thune. Okay. Good. Well, we will look forward to
working with you on that.
Let me ask you this: Do you have any suggested changes for
us to improve CRP and other FSA-administered conservation
programs as we draft the next farm bill? I am sure that is a
question you perhaps have already been asked, but would you
elaborate on that?
Mr. Nelson. Yes, and I appreciate the chance to talk a
little bit more about it. Again, we look forward to the
streamlining initiative, to working with your Committee, to
working with Chief White and the conservation organizations to
try to make sure that the programs work better for producers.
You know, as a farmer from Montana, it never really mattered to
me when I went into the USDA office whether I was going to NRCS
or FSA; I just wanted help. And I think that is the way most
farmers are, and that is the way we ought to approach our work
in these agencies.
Again, I believe that to the extent in this time of fewer
dollars that we can target these programs to the most
environmentally sensitive land so that we get more bang for the
buck while maintaining the variety of tools that producers
need, again, as we talked about before, our conservation needs
in Montana are different than yours in South Dakota or Michigan
or Kansas, and we have got to make sure producers, regardless
of where they are in the country, have the tools they need. So
target the programs and give the producers the tools.
Senator Thune. Madam Chairwoman, my time has expired, but I
do have a question for Chief White, if I might submit that for
the record.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Absolutely, yes.
Senator Thune. Thank you.
[The question of Hon. John Thune can be found on page 242
in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Senator Klobuchar.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and
thank you for your work in this area, and thank you to our two
great witnesses. Chief White has been to Minnesota I think
three times in the past year or so. I have seen him at the Farm
Bureau, the Farmers Union, and then also I know you were at the
Pheasants Forever event, too, so thank you. And Dave Nomsen is
out there somewhere from Minnesota, from our Pheasants Forever.
I wanted to start with some questions relating to Open
Fields. During the 2008 farm bill, I worked for funding for the
voluntary access program, as you all know, called Open Fields.
This program offers a voluntary incentive to farmers and
ranchers to open up their land for hunting and fishing. As you
know, funding was eliminated in the fiscal year 2012
appropriations bill, but I wanted to hear from you about how
the program has been working in the first few rounds. Either of
you. Mr. Nelson?
Mr. Nelson. Yes, Senator, if you will bear with me a
minute, I am not as well organized as I should be here this
morning.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay.
Mr. Nelson. As you indicated, there was $50 million for
this new program under the 2008 farm bill, and to date, we have
26 State fish and wildlife agencies and one tribe, the Yakama
Tribe from Washington State, who have participated in the
program, and we have obligated almost $30 million.
So we think that this has been a successful program. The
President has included $5 million for the program in his 2013
budget. But right now we are not able to do any modifications
or additions to the areas out there or to go out to the States
and give them and the tribes an opportunity to participate.
One of the things that we are planning on is a transfer of
the responsibility for the administration of this to NRCS,
which I believe makes some sense.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Do you want to add anything then,
Chief White?
Mr. White. We will try to do a good job of following in
Bruce's footsteps.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Good.
I want to ask a few CRP questions. Senator Harkin did a
good job, and I will maybe do one in writing to follow up on
the use of the acres. Minnesota is one of the top States, as
you know, for using those programs in the country.
One of the things that I have heard from farmers--and I
know you touched on it, Chief White, in your testimony--is
efforts to remove the obstacles producers face in accessing
conservation programs. This is the application process, things
like that.
Mr. White. I am glad you asked. We have an effort underway
as part of our streamlining initiative to help us get ready for
the budgets that I know we are going to see. We are testing
right now, Senator, a client gateway software which will allow
producers to sit at home, apply for a program over the
Internet, look at their conservation plan, check where the EQIP
schedule is, to do all their conservation work at home. It is
being tested right now. We would like to roll it out this fall,
and we estimate that if we can get this up and running, we can
save our producers 750,000 hours a year at a minimum in time
that they are driving to the office or waiting in line or in a
car. So that is just one example of what we are going to try to
do to make it easier for our producers to participate in these
programs.
Senator Klobuchar. That sounds good.
Also, some conservation agriculture stakeholders have been
looking for the possibility of allowing more haying and grazing
within certain parameters that will encourage producers to keep
more acres in the program. How do you think the program could
be improved to ensure that the producer and the taxpayer and
the environment can all benefit from more haying and grazing on
CRP land?
Mr. Nelson. Senator, there is currently two ways that we
have haying and grazing, as you know, under CRP: There are the
emergency provisions that I talked about earlier with Senator
Roberts, and those come about under unfortunate circumstances,
normally drought in our part of the country. But then there is
also the managed haying and grazing provisions that allow
producers three times during the 10-year contract to do grazing
on the practice and one time to do haying. But you can never do
more than 50 percent at one time or during the primary nesting
season to try to make sure that we do not affect wildlife.
We would look forward to working with you and the Committee
during your discussion of the farm bill on the managed haying
and grazing as well as the emergency provisions to see what we
could come up with.
I also do want to mention one thing in terms of
modernization that I think is important, and that is that FSA,
as you all know, is undergoing development of a new software
program called MIDAS that is going to be critical for getting
our employees the 21st century tools that they need to deliver
the farm programs, including the conservation programs that are
assigned to FSA. Not only will that program get our employees
away from 1985 computers that they are still using to
administer the programs, but like what Chief White is doing at
NRCS, it will give producers a lot better direct access on the
Internet to our programs. So it has the double benefit of
making our employees more productive and giving producers
better access to our programs directly as well.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you. Thank you to both of you.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Senator Grassley?
Senator Grassley. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
First of all, Senator Klobuchar asked the first question I
was going to ask, her last question, but I would simply add to
it that I have a lot of interest in my State in expanding
haying and grazing opportunities. And I hope that people do not
think that the request comes from those that want to double-dip
in the sense of harvesting some of the benefits of their CRP
both from the Federal Treasury as well as from their own sale
or own use of it. So just put me down as one supporting the
same interest as what Senator Klobuchar just asked, and I do
not have to have any comment on that because I heard what you
told her.
I do have a question on the issue of conservation. Before I
ask that, I want to say that this is a common topic among
farmers. There are seminars, policy meetings, and forums
dedicated to this issue of conservation. It gets a lot of
attention in my State because, until recently, we had one of
the most highly erodible States, and I think now with the
conservation programs we have, we have got that down to a point
where it is renewable, at least.
I am not taking away from those efforts that we already are
doing, but I do think that we need to recognize a very
important fact. Many farmers are excellent stewards of the land
that they farms. Farmers and their families obviously have to
be concerned about the same water, the purity of the water, the
cleanness of the air, and right where they live and work.
In addition, it is in a farmer's financial interest to take
measures that limit erosion and runoff, so there are plenty of
incentives to be good stewards. The Federal conservation
programs are an important tool for farmers in their
conservation efforts. In particular, I have heard from numerous
farmers that the working land programs such as EQIP are
especially useful. In fact, as of last fall, there was a
backlog of 2,700 unfunded Iowa EQIP applications worth $62
million. So it is clear that there is a lot of support from
farmers for that program.
Another thing that the Agriculture Committee needs to keep
in mind is telling the story that they do. I have an example
from Carroll County, Iowa, where farmers leveraged EQIP and CRP
money to help improve the water quality of Brushy Creek. Recent
water quality testing showed that farmers' efforts have, in
fact, resulted in tangible improvements, so that is very
quantifiable. And as we debate reauthorization of these
programs, I support reducing the overlap of programs as long as
we maintain the effectiveness of success stories like this.
So my question, Mr. White, and it is probably pretty
nebulous, but I think that we have to take advantage not only
of quantifying the benefits of dollars we appropriate and the
benefits that come from those dollars--because you have to do
that to be accountable to the taxpayers--but has there been any
thought about the Government taking a lead on trying to
quantify what farmers do on their own initiative without the
benefit of taxpayer dollars? An example would be like we tend
to read figures about minimum tillage or conservation tillage
being 41 percent now compared to 26 percent several years ago
as an example, so that we can put some effort into finding out
what farmers do on their own in addition to what we do with
just taxpayer dollars.
Mr. White. Senator, that is a great question, not nebulous
at all, and the answer is yes. We have done that in the
Chesapeake Bay. We actually contracted with the National
Association of Conservation Districts (NACD). You have heard of
the EPA Bay Model. There were concerns that it was
undercounting what farmers were doing voluntarily. And the NACD
went out and did some research on it, and, frankly, they
think--permission to revise and extend, but I think it was
about a 25-percent undercount, if I recall correctly.
The problem we are going to have with this is they also
said to get a really good grip of it, it would cost us $13
million to go out there and really figure it out.
So there are ways that I think, through sampling, there
modeling, we can start to get a better handle on it. We are
using the Conservation Effects Assessment Project. It is giving
us a good handle on what is going on out there, and I will go
back and talk to our scientists and stuff and see what are the
methodologies we might use to better capture that work that is
done without Federal or State or local cost share, where it is
just a producer wanting to do what is right.
Senator Grassley. If you could report back to me or my
staff, I would appreciate it.
Mr. White. We would be delighted to do so, Senator.
Senator Grassley. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you.
Senator Bennet?
Senator Bennet. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much
for holding this hearing. The conservation title, particularly
the easement programs like the Grasslands Reserve Program, the
Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, are absolutely vital to
farmers and ranchers in Colorado, and a letter I brought with
me today illustrates many of their successes. I should say it
also includes, Chief White, some very beautiful photographs
that maybe you could add to your list. It is signed by the
Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust, the San Isabel
Land Protection Trust, and the Nature Conservancy, among
others. With your permission, Madam Chair, I would ask that it
be entered into the record.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Without objection.
Senator Bennet. Thank you very much.
[The letter can be found on page 149 in the appendix.]
Senator Bennet. Chief White, I continue to hear that NRCS
has backlogs for the current easement programs and that
landowner demand outpaces current funding levels. Would the
Service be able to submit information on the number of unfunded
applications you have gotten for FRPP, GRP, and the Wetlands
Reserve Program, WRP?
Mr. White. Yes, sir.
Senator Bennet. Thank you. I appreciate that.
[The following information can be found on page 246 in the
appendix.]
And, Chief, the Bureau of Reclamation, as you know, is
working on a study of the Colorado River Basin which is due out
in July. The study is likely to highlight the gap between the
demands on the river, both the agricultural and municipal, and
supply into the future. I wonder whether you could share with
the Committee how NRCS is working with farmers, ranchers, and
conservation partners out West to secure the productivity of
agriculture in the basin while also addressing this gap.
Mr. White. We do a lot of work with the Bureau of
Reclamation, Senator Bennet. I can give you a California
example where they are putting money in and we are putting
money in, and this is in the Central Valley. They are trying to
shore up the conveyance systems for irrigation and water
development, and we are taking it from the point it comes out
of the canal and doing the on-farm conservation. And we are
having some really phenomenal results.
In your particular part of the world, when EQIP was created
back in 1996, they created that out of four programs. One of
them was the Colorado River Salinity Program. From that day to
this day, millions of dollars are being spent in the Colorado
River Basin to work on the salinity issues because of our
treaty obligations with Mexico on the Colorado River on the
salt content. We are also doing a huge amount of work on the
efficiency, water conservation on those irrigated lands. So I
think with the programs we are addressing that.
Senator Bennet. I appreciate that. I met last week, Madam
Chair, with some representatives of our conservation districts,
our water districts, and one of the things they wanted to urge
me to say to the Committee is that what in the rest of the
country can be seen as a water quality issue, in the West it
really is a water quantity issue that our people are struggling
with. And I appreciate very much your work on this.
The group of people I met with actually represented the
entire State, including San Luis Valley where Ken Salazar is
from, a former member of this Committee. We talked a lot about
the importance of AWEP and EQIP, and, Chief, I wonder if, with
the last couple minutes I have here, you could give us your
thoughts on how we maintain the functions of those programs as
we move to a simpler farm bill. You had said earlier in your
testimony that the work that the Chair and the Ranking Member
had done for the super committee sort of hit the mark, and I
agree with that as a general matter. We need to make sure that
in the writing of the law and the implementation that, as we
think about consolidation here, we are protecting the important
functions here. And I wonder if you have got a perspective on
that.
Mr. White. Yes, I do. In full disclosure, I have never seen
the final copy. I do not know anything about it. We were called
up to provide counsel and advice. But my understanding is that
it is awesome, just awesome. You have got--the A-Team working
on this darn thing.
I think as far as AWEP goes, there are some opportunities
there for--essentially, that is a partnership issue where you
work with other entities and things like that, and I said
earlier if we could increase our partnership activities, that
would be good, especially in view of the budgets that are
declining. But I would put a lot of faith in the Chair and
Ranking Member as well as all of you when you see that,
whenever that Chairman's mark comes out.
Senator Bennet. Okay. Madam Chair, I have got a number of
other questions for Chief White and for Mr. Nelson. I wonder if
I could submit those for the record for their written
responses.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Absolutely.
Senator Bennet. Thank you very much.
[The questions of Hon. Michael F. Bennet can be found on
page 237 in the appendix.:]
Senator Bennet. Thank you both for your testimony.
Mr. White. May I have one follow-up, Senator?
Chairwoman Stabenow. Yes.
Mr. White. Senator Harkin mentioned about the strategy, and
part of the 2008 was the reauthorization of the Resource
Conservation Act. We had something like 2, 200 surveys come
back asking people what they thought the biggest issue is. The
number one issue, Senator, was water, water quality and water
quantity. And that is going to be a big part of the strategy
that comes out of USDA.
Senator Bennet. Well, I am very glad to hear you say that
because that is our number one issue in Colorado. Thank you.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Senator Chambliss?
Senator Chambliss. Thanks, Madam Chair, and, gentlemen,
thanks for the good work you are doing down at USDA. And I want
to follow up on this particular issue of water quality, but
there are some other related issues there, too.
Chief White, on February 17th, you announced a partnership
with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to improve water
quality, wildlife habitat, and soil productivity. The
partnership brings together $10 million of NRCS funding with an
additional $10 million or more in private funds through NFWF to
increase technical assistance in priority areas. Now, I want to
ask you several related questions with regard to that
partnership.
First, can you provide the Committee with details on how
this partnership will be administered and how will the $10
million in funding be used?
Secondly, are there appropriated funds from the
conservation operations account? And does the funding go
directly to NFWF?
And how will USDA work with NFWF to ensure the funds are
used appropriately? And how are the priority areas determined
to be a priority and by whom?
Mr. White. Thank you, Senator. I am glad you asked about
that because I think that is one of the key things that relates
to our future when we talk about reducing budgets and the need
for Federal agencies to be creative in how we can leverage the
work that gets done in the field.
The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is quasi-
governmental. They have a charter by Congress to do these kinds
of things, to raise money. Jeff Trandahl, who is the Chief
Executive Officer of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation,
is on the next panel, and he can probably answer some of this
better as far as their authorities. But they are quasi-
governmental. They do have a charter for this.
I would be happy to provide you with the details, the
agreement we have, send it to you, the Committee or your staff
or whatever you all prefer. That is your first question. Yes,
we will provide the details.
The second one, are conservation operations funds used? No,
they are not. We are using farm bill technical assistance. If I
recall correctly, it was some EQIP, some Wildlife Habitat
Incentive, and some CRP funding.
[Mr. White made a correction in the statement, the
funds were from CO and CRP, not EQIP and WHIP.]
One of the things in this agreement is to help us with the
CRP as well as FSA, and Bruce has talked some about the
agreements that are being done.
And the third question was how will USDA do something. Help
me?
Senator Chambliss. How will USDA work with NFWF to ensure
the funds are used appropriately? And who is going to determine
these priority areas?
Mr. White. Okay, the priority areas. The priority areas--
well, to work with them to ensure that funds are used properly,
this is going to be dollars that would be given as grants to an
entity that is successful in competing with this. I am from
Missouri, and you have to show me stuff. And last year we tried
a $1 million effort with National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
They took that $1 million, and they turned it into $5 million
with leveraged donations.
I know we need more boots on the ground to do conservation.
I really do not care whose foot is in that boot, if it is NRCS
or local or State or nongovernmental organizations. I know we
need to work out there to get it done.
So after that experience last year, we obligated some more
funds, and hopefully this $10 million will turn into $20 or $30
million or something of that nature.
The grants would go to things like Pheasants Forever, so
Pheasants Forever would come up with their own money, they
would get some match money from us that would be set aside for
them to pay staff over a period of time. Those people would
work in our offices. They would be Pheasants Forever or State
forestry or whatever people, but they would work under our day-
to-day guidance. They would use our technical standards. They
would have the e-authorization, the IT currently that you would
need in an NRCS office. If needed, we would do the background
survey, have the finger-printing done, and they would sign the
confidentiality, the 1619 form that all of us have to honor and
respect the confidentiality. And then it becomes more of the
procurement process on, as bills come--I think they come on a
form called an 1172 quarterly, and they are verified that the
charges were accrued, and then they are paid out.
As far as the priority areas, NRCS has about 15
initiatives, and we use those. There may be a couple of--I
cannot remember all of them, Senator, but it is like the
Chesapeake Bay, the Mississippi River, the sage grouse effort.
But I can get you more specific information on all of those,
sir. New England forestry was in there. Actually, New England
forestry became a priority area because I got a letter from
seven New England Governors asking us to do it.
So there are a variety of things that I can provide a lot
of information for you, sir.
Senator Chambliss. Okay. Well, if you do not mind following
up with written responses to that. I would appreciate it. Thank
you.
[The following information can be found on page 248 in the
appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Senator Baucus?
Senator Baucus. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I am just very
honored to have Bruce Nelson testify, and also, Chief White,
thank you very much.
Just for the information of my colleagues, I have known
Bruce for a lot of years, and he is Mr. Agriculture in the
State of Montana. His farm is near Fort Benton. He has served
in many capacities. Just a real public servant. Not only a
great farmer but a great public servant. He just cares about
the program, and I want to thank him very much.
And you, Chief White, too. I do not know you as well as I
know Bruce, but I am sure you are just the same. It is really
exciting to have you here, although you have great ties in
Montana, though, Bruce, and I appreciate that as well.
I just want to thank you all very much. As you know, we
export so much of our wheat from Montana to other countries
around the world. In fact, at one point up to 80 percent of
Montana wheat gets exported. We have got a perfect combination
of hard, smart workers. Agriculture is our number one industry,
Madam Chairwoman. I do not know if it is in Michigan or not. I
suppose with the auto industry agriculture may not be number
one, but it is close. And in Montana it has been number one
ever since I can remember, and that is a good number of years.
I do not have questions at this time for Bruce or for Chief
White, but I just want to again thank you very much, both of
you, for what you are doing.
There is a panel that is coming up later, Madam Chairwoman,
with someone from Montana on it, Carl Mattson.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Yes.
Senator Baucus. I will have some questions I will ask of
him. But I do have one question, though, for both of you here,
and that is, the Grassland Reserve Program. And maybe it is
tied in here, maybe it is not, I do not know. But in an effort
to keep the sage grouse from being listed under the Endangered
Species Act, I know that USDA under its various conservation
programs is trying to help producers develop their rangeland
not only for grain and for livestock and so forth, but also to
help sage grouse habitat. And I wonder if the two of you could
address that and the efforts that you are undertaking, because
it is very, very important to a lot of States in the West that
the sage grouse not be listed under the Endangered Species Act.
Mr. Nelson. Well, thanks, Senator, for the question and for
the kind words. I am glad Carl Mattson is here, too, because he
is a real Montana farmer. My farming is sort of confined to a
desk these days.
Senator Baucus. Oh, you are a real farmer, too. Believe me,
I know. I have been to your place.
Mr. Nelson. But a couple of things, and then I will turn
this over to Chief White in a minute to talk about the sage
grouse in particular.
FSA in Montana has a SAFE area, State Acres for Wildlife
habitat, a thousand-acre SAFE area specifically devoted to re-
establishing sagebrush, which provides critical habitat for the
sage grouse.
Now, I have to confess that as a farmer it is kind of
interesting because I remember when my dad and grandpa
participated in programs through the same agency back in the
1960s to get rid of sagebrush. So we are turning around now,
understanding the environmental consequences of that and the
benefits of its re-establishment.
In addition to that, as you pointed out, Senator, the
Grassland Reserve Program, which we jointly administer with
NRCS, is a very good program for maintaining and establishing a
sage grouse habitat out there and trying to keep it from being
listed. In Montana, we have got almost 70,000 acres under GRP
contracts and have devoted almost $7.8 million to those
contracts. So FSA is trying to play its part in this.
The President has included $5 million in his 2013 budget
proposal to maintain existing GRP contracts, but right now with
tight budgets, we are a little short on dollars for expansion
of the program.
Chief?
Mr. White. One thing: Montana. We are doing so much cool
stuff with sage grouse. We have got a core area outside a
roundup, 14 ranchers, 11 of them signed up. These guys are wild
about it. And, sir, you know, I know a lot of these ranchers.
These guys are a little bit to the right of Tsar Nicholas, and
they love this program.
[Laughter.]
Senator Baucus. I know a few of them.
Mr. White. If you look at the Canadian grasslands up there
in Saskatchewan, there is a remnant population of sage grouse
that we found out through this effort is actually migratory.
These birds come down from Canada down to the Charles Russell
Wildlife Refuge to overwinter, and on the BLM land surrounding
that. We really take GRP money and some Farm and Ranchland
Protection, and we are trying to lock down that grass highway
so these birds will have, you know, the grass to get to Charles
Russell, the Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge, so they can
overwinter.
So next when you talk to your Canadian friends, you can
tell them we saved the Canadian sage grouse, no charge, just
doing it to be good neighbors.
Senator Baucus. I appreciate that. Also, I am glad you are
making good use, if I understood you correctly, Bruce, of
sagebrush.
Mr. Nelson. Yes, actually it is a sagebrush SAFE area, but
the sagebrush are critical for the sage grouse.
Senator Baucus. I thought you said that, and I think that
is----
Mr. Nelson. I do not want to have to try to say that again
and stumble.
Senator Baucus. It is good to hear that someone is making
good use of sagebrush. We had a sheepherder years ago in our
place. His name was Hans Koske. Hans Koske was convinced that
he could develop a patent to turn sagebrush into perfume. He
has been out there herding a lot of sheep for a long time.
[Laughter.]
Senator Baucus. He got thinking about a few things, and he
was quite convinced that he is going to get a patent for
sagebrush to convert into perfume, and he would break open the
sagebrush and he would try to get the perfume out of it. I do
not think it ever worked, but now we are making good use of
sagebrush, and I really appreciate that very much because he
was--this is sort of in memory of Hans Koske because this guy
tried.
Senator Roberts. Mr. Chairman, what was the name of that
perfume? Was that ``Sagebrush''?
Senator Baucus. It was just ``Sage.''
[Laughter.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. All right. Well, maybe we can include
that in a bio-manufacturing provisions that we put into the
bill.
Senator Baucus. I also want to make the point, I am glad
you are urging cooperation. Time and time again I see at home
you get producers fighting something, fighting, fighting,
fighting. I keep saying, ``You cannot beat something with
nothing. Come up with a plan.'' For example, a lot of operators
at home work with Fish, Wildlife, and Parks, you know, managing
game. Some of the game graze on some of the private property,
but also some public land, and they work out an agreement. So I
really appreciate the efforts you are undertaking under the
Grassland Reserve Program. That grass highway you talked about,
Chief White, that is good, too.
My strong view is the more you encourage that, the more
people sign up and participate, and that word spreads. There
are going to be a few crusty old characters that are not going
to participate, but, by and large, on the margin it is going to
make a difference.
I thank you very much very much.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you.
Senator Boozman?
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I would ask unanimous consent that the
National Cotton Council's statement be placed in the record.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Without objection.
Senator Boozman. Thank you.
[The statement can be found on page 118 in the appendix.]
Senator Boozman. I appreciate you guys being here. We
appreciate your hard work and all that you are doing for the
programs. The slides were encouraging.
I would like to ask just a question, kind of a practical
thing that we are hearing at home. For conservation programs
administered by NRCS, some of the supporting forms must be
completed at the local FSA office, and FSA has announced plans
to close some of the offices. As a result, producers may be
required to go to the NRCS in one town and FSA in another town.
Is USDA considering modification of sign-up procedures to
enable the producers to complete all forms at one location.
Mr. White. I will turn this over to Bruce, but the answer
is yes. Bruce and I have talked about this on where the records
would be. We do not want to have producers going to County A
and then to County B for something else. So I have got a little
group at NRCS, some State conservationists that are supposed to
give me some recommendations, working with FSA, on how we can
resolve that.
Bruce?
Mr. Nelson. Yes, and I appreciate--just a little background
on this. Senator Baucus alluded to Dave's Montana background.
He was State conservationist out in Montana, and so he and I
have had a good working relationship for years, and so it was
pretty easy when I got back here just to continue that. And we
are working together to try to make sure that producers,
Senator, in those situations, should those offices close, that
we can accommodate them as much as possible, including, you
know, that we would consider during heavy sign-up periods
having FSA staff go over to a neighboring NRCS office to make
sure that producers could sign up as easily as possible.
I mentioned earlier that our MIDAS software development
program hopefully will make it easier for producers to directly
access our programs. I know Chief White is working on the same
thing at NRCS, and hopefully eventually that will actually cut
down on the number of times that producers have to come to our
offices to sign up for the programs.
Senator Boozman. I think that is great, and again, that
really is a very practical consideration that is going to come
up. Many of the counties that I deal with, the average age of
the farmer is in the 60s. Many of them are not that Web-based
literate, so, you know, these are good things, and it is good
for all of us. But there are some drawbacks, and so I think,
you know, if we can just use some common-sense approaches like
you are talking about doing, that would be very beneficial.
Do we anticipate closing NRCS county-level offices in the
future?
Mr. White. Senator, I would not rule it out, to be 100
percent honest with you. We are about to embark upon a pretty
long, hard look at the structure, what should be the NRCS field
office of the future. And NACD, the National Association of
Conservation Districts, we have been partnering with
conservation district since the mid-1930s. We would like to do
a process with them. Gene Schmidt, the president of NACD, is
here. We will probably send out a joint letter to all the
States, the State conservation districts and the State
Conservationists, and ask them to sit down, talk it through.
Where do we need to be? Where do we not need to be? What should
these offices be doing?
One of the things I do not want to see happen, is to have
staff driving 3 hours to get to a farm, spending 2 hours, and
then driving 3 hours back. So we may have sub-offices. I just
do not know. But we are going to have a much better idea at the
end of September.
Senator Boozman. Good. We appreciate working with your
staff, Mr. Nelson. They have been very helpful, and give
yourself a pat on the back in that regard. Like I say, it is
helpful to be listened to and to understand some of the
problems with closing some of the offices. Again, your staff
has been very helpful.
Mr. Nelson. Well, I really appreciate that. They are the
ones that deserve the pat on the back. And, by the way, I am
one of those over-60 producers who is not very Web literate,
and so I need all the help I can get at the local office, too.
Senator Boozman. Well, especially in an area like Montana,
where it is not that easy. And we have many areas in Arkansas
like that where, you know, a 20-mile trip or a whatever trip is
much more like a 45-minute to an hour trip.
Mr. Nelson. You bet.
Senator Boozman. Thank you.
Mr. Nelson. Thank you, sir.
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much, and thank you to
both of you.
Chief White, I am going to be submitting a question for the
record for you today regarding the work that we did last fall
on the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which is
consolidating four existing programs to give greater
flexibility for farmers and groups. This is a very important
piece for us in the Great Lakes, and I would appreciate your
thoughts as we go forward on how we can make that effective.
[The following information can be found on page 217 in the
appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much for presentations
and answering the questions. We look forward to continuing to
work with you on this very, very important part of the farm
bill.
At this point we would ask our second panel to come
forward.
[Pause.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Welcome. We are so pleased to have all
of you here, and my voice is still holding out a little bit. We
will proceed now. Of course, we ask for 5 minutes' verbal
testimony, and you are welcome to submit whatever you would
like in writing. We are certainly very interested in whatever
you would like the Committee to take a look at.
I am going to first, for our first witness, turn to Senator
Roberts to make the introduction.
Senator Roberts. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman. I would
like to welcome Jeff Trandahl, the executive director of the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The foundation was
created by Congress back in 1984. They match public and private
conservation funds to address environmental issues. They have a
number of innovative partnerships at work all across the
country.
Jeff was elected clerk of the House of Representatives and
served from 1998 to 2005. That is 7 years in that body. And
prior to serving as clerk, Jeff worked in the congressional
offices of Senator Jim Abdnor and Congresswoman Virginia Smith
where he learned everything he wanted to know in regard to
appropriations, and then in my own office when I was a member
of that body. I do not know quite how to describe his role in
that he was a special projects director. That means when there
was an IED about to go off and nobody in the office wanted to
touch it, we would assign Jeff to do it, and he would do that
job. I am talking about the challenges we faced at that
particular time in the post office and the bank and the
restaurant in the House of Representatives. Those were indeed
challenging times.
He is a personal friend. I am pleased that I can officially
welcome Jeff to testify before the Committee.
And then I would also like to, if I can at this point,
welcome Mr. Dean Stoskopf from Hoisington, Kansas, America.
Dean is joined today by his wife, Mary Anne, and his son,
Wayne, and his daughter, Julie, who currently work in the
Washington area. Dean operates a diversified farm producing
wheat, grain, sorghum, alfalfa, and forages. And he also
manages a Red Angus cow-calf operation. He is a member of the
Kansas Association of Wheat Growers, the Kansas Farm Bureau,
and has been active in the National Association of Wheat
Growers. And he is not only a member of these organizations; he
has been one of the most active producers in the State of
Kansas when it comes to giving of his time, serving as an
officer of these organizations both at the State and the
national level.
Dean, thank you for your service and leadership. On behalf
of both Kansas and America's producers, we are so pleased you
and Mary Anne could come to Washington and share some
conservation thoughts with us and enjoy your family. So thank
you for coming, sir.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Terrific.
And sitting between Senator Roberts' witnesses, we have
Becky Humphries, who is the director of Ducks Unlimited, Great
Lakes/Atlantic Regional Office, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ms.
Humphries joined Ducks Unlimited in January 2011. Prior to that
she was the director of the Michigan Department of Natural
Resources for 7 years, did a terrific job. She worked for
natural resource and wildlife agencies in Michigan for nearly
30 years, and I think important to me, Becky is a graduate of
Michigan State University, who, by the way, is on their way to
a Big Ten basketball championship, just for the record. We are
very excited about that. So I am very, very pleased to have you
with us today.
And now I will turn to Senator Baucus to introduce our next
witness.
Senator Baucus. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I am very
honored to introduce Carl Mattson. Carl, thank you very much
for being here.
Madam Chairwoman, Carl Mattson is quite a guy. He farms up
near Chester, Montana. Chester is up on what we call ``the High
Line.'' The High Line is basically Highway 2 across northern
Montana, the Great Northern Railroad, when we came west, you
know, North Dakota and across Montana and kept going, and they
had the first railroad camps that Great Northern built. We had
numbers like Camp 16, Camp 17, and so forth. And somebody got
the bright idea, well, we could give names to these railroad
camps. And so if you look across the High Line, you see all
these European names. There is Kremlin, there is Malta, there
is Glasgow. I am trying to think where Chester is in Europe.
Maybe Carl could tell us where Chester is. But then all
across--the Great Northern Railroad just took this map of
Europe and just plucked all these names, and that is what those
towns are across the High Line in northern Montana. Anyway,
Chester is one of those town straightforward.
Carl has been operating for many years, about 37 years, and
his family. He runs primarily a no-till wheat operation,
started, I think, back in the 1990s, very involved in the
State, public schools in Chester, Montana Grain Growers,
Montana Stock Growers, NRCS local working group, and he is also
a member of the Precision Ag Research Association. That really
impresses me. I would like to talk to Carl and figure out how
many inches taller it is when they set up the computer in their
combines. Next year they got things just totally covered and
the seed that comes out just right and other data they might be
getting from the soil when they are running the combine. It is
just amazing, the computer operations. It just creates
efficiencies so much.
But, anyway, Carl, just thanks so much for all that you do.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about what we do in the
next farm bill. So thanks very much for coming. Also, we very
much want to thank Janice--did Janice make the trip with you?
Mr. Mattson. No, sir.
Senator Baucus. Well, thank Janice, please. Say hello to
Janice.
Thanks.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Great. Thanks very much.
Senator Klobuchar?
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is my honor
to introduce Darrel Mosel and represent him. He is a farmer in
Sibley County in Minnesota. And there is no surprise that we
would have a witness on this panel. We are actually second in
the country for people signing up for the Wetlands Reserve
Program. We are fourth in the Nation for the CRP and tenth in
the EQIP program. And so our State really believes in these
programs. We think it has been good for our recreation and
hunting and fishing, but it has also been good for farming. Our
agricultural lands are more productive than ever.
Darrel Mosel operates a 600-acre diversified crop and dairy
operation with his wife, Diane, and his two sons, Christopher
and Michael, in south-central Minnesota. Currently half of the
farm operation is organize and half is conventional. He raises
a variety of crops, including corn, soybeans, small grains, and
alfalfa.
The Mosel family also milk Holstein cows and operate a
small feedlot with about 150 cattle on the farm. So he is
diversified. That is what I would say.
He has extensive firsthand experience with farm programs
related to conservation, dairy, and commodities. We welcome him
to the panel to give really a firsthand look at what is working
and what is not, and we really appreciate you being here, Mr.
Mosel. Thank you.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
And last, but certainly not least, Earl Garber, president-
elect of the National Association of Conservation Districts. He
recently served as president of the Louisiana Association of
Conservation Districts. From Basile, Louisiana, Mr. Garber is a
rice, soybean, and hay producer by trade. His operation is 550
acres and also includes commercial timber and sorghum. He began
his career in conservation working for the USDA as a soil
scientist. Today he is also a licensed crop consultant.
We very much welcome and appreciate all of you today, and
we will start with Mr. Trandahl.
STATEMENT OF JEFF TRANDAHL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL FISH
AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Trandahl. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and thank you,
Mr. Roberts. I want to introduce myself as Jeff Trandahl. I am
the CEO and executive director of the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation.
As Senator Roberts mentioned, it is a foundation that was
actually created by Congress back in 1984, and my job is to go
out and partner with Federal agencies and then raise private
resources in order to align those resources alongside those
Federal dollars. It is a way then to grow that conservation pot
and also stimulate the economy by doing that in order to
prevent environmental and endangered species issues across the
country.
At NFWF we have several different goals: one is to raise
those private dollars; two, to create efficiencies in terms of
putting those dollars on the ground; create as many
partnerships as possible across the country; have impact, and
measurable impacts; and also bring innovation whenever
possible; and also bring interest in the private sector around
what we are all trying to accomplish.
Conservation has the possibility of being an enormous
positive economic impact. Last year, we did a study in the
midst of the Federal budget reduction discussions to just show
how significant that economic driver is across the country. Not
only in agriculture but across this sector, it is more than a
$1 trillion annual impact in the U.S. And it is incredibly
important when you look at its job creation opportunity because
it is more than 9 million jobs that we talk about here in the
U.S.
NFWF strives to support conservation through hundreds of
grants annually to agriculture and ranching communities. We
focus mostly on working landscapes, and one of our largest
Federal partners among our 14 Federal partners is NRCS. And I
have to say we greatly appreciate and want to applaud the last
few years in working with NRCS in the innovation and adaptive
management that they have been bringing to several conservation
programs. And as you look forward, we want to see you work with
NRCS to continue to enhance those programs.
We are very fortunate. We create that leverage by working
with more than 50 corporations, multiple foundations around the
country, and 600 major donors. One program in particular, which
Senator Chambliss brought up, is CPP. CPP is a recently created
program with NRCS where they have been able to put forward $10
million, of which we have committed to raise at least $10
million in addition, to work with landowners to understand
conservation programs better.
It is really the result of the fact that the last few years
we have heard a lot that capacity and understanding the
producers is what is preventing a lot of the enrollment out
there. And, really, to address it you have two choices: it is
to create more Federal positions to start working with
producers or to rely on third parties to get out there and to
really do that work. And in most cases, third parties are much
more trusted, no offense to any of my Federal colleagues here,
than Federal bureaucrats themselves.
So in doing this program, we just had a real life
experience a few years ago with an oil spill down in the gulf.
And during that spill, we had the opportunity to do some
proactive conservation in order to prevent additional wildlife
losses. And the real focus became rice farmers, and that 5
months that they were idling their land down there in order to
convert that land into temporary wetlands to deal with 1.5
billion birds that were migrating down.
So the challenge to the foundation from NRCS and the
Federal agencies is: Can you get people on the ground quickly
to talk to these producers? And could we get them actually
enrolled in programs incredibly quickly, in a matter of a few
weeks, in order to create this temporary opportunity to prevent
loss?
Through Ducks Unlimited, through Mississippi Fish and Game,
through Florida and Texas, we were able to convert more than
500,000 acres in a matter of a few months. And producer demand
was actually 3 times higher than what we could possibly fund.
Based on that experience, I went back to the chief and
said, listen, we need to do this nationally, and we need to do
this in priority areas across the country in order to deal with
sage grouse, the Great Lakes, the Northeast forests, longleaf
forests down in the Southeast, and on and on.
I believe it is going to have an enormous impact, and,
again, what it will do is it will allow us to grow that through
private dollars more than Federal dollars, which I believe is
also incredibly important at a time where we are very fiscally
restrained.
That being said, I want to urge the Committee to look at
the conservation title and continue to allow NRCS greater
innovation opportunities as programs evolve. We think we can
predict what the problems are, but we constantly find ourselves
responding 90 percent of the time to the issues that we cannot
predict. And that is where the programs have to be able to
adapt in order to prevent us from suffering losses that we do
not intend.
At the same time, I want to urge you to look at the CRP
program. I believe that there are lots of issues and lots of
opportunities that we can avoid by making that program more
robust, more flexible, and more producer sensitive. And at the
same time, I hope that we continue to move the agency towards
measurable outcomes in order to guarantee that we can actually
show the result of all this investment that the taxpayers are
being asked to put forward.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Trandahl can be found on
page 91 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Ms. Humphries?
STATEMENT OF BECKY HUMPHRIES, DIRECTOR, GREAT LAKES/ATLANTIC
REGIONAL OFFICE, DUCKS UNLIMITED, INC., ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN
Ms. Humphries. Chairwoman Stabenow, Ranking Member Roberts,
members of the Senate Committee, on behalf of the million
members and supporters of Ducks Unlimited, I would like to
thank you for the invitation to address you today.
As it was mentioned, my name is Becky Humphries, and I am
the director of Ducks Unlimited's Great Lakes/Atlantic Regional
Office. Between my staff and I, we cover 21 State in the
Midwest along to the east coast of the United States. Before
that I was director of the Michigan Department of Natural
Resources, and in that role I served on national and
international committees related to fish and wildlife with the
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.
My written testimony today is endorsed by the Association
of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the Theodore Roosevelt
Conservation Partnership, and Pheasants Forever. And like the
Senator, I, too, am suffering from a bug, so hopefully we will
get through this with my voice intact.
Ducks Unlimited got its start back in 1937. In fact, we are
celebrating our 75th anniversary this year. In that year, a
small group of conservationists got together to address the
concerns with declining waterfowl numbers due to Dust Bowl
conditions in the United States. Our mission then and our
mission today is simple: it is habitat conservation. Ducks
Unlimited is now the world's largest and most effective private
wetlands and waterfowl conservation organization in the world.
Waterfowl are not the only beneficiaries of our habitat
work. Wetlands improve the overall health of our environment by
recharging and purifying our groundwater, moderating floods,
and reducing soil erosion. DU delivers its on-the-ground work
by forging partnerships. In DU, we actually work with farmers
and ranchers to restore and improve the working landscape for
waterfowl and other wildlife. Underpinning these projects are
the programs that comprise the conservation title of the farm
bill.
Being that this is Great Lakes week in Washington, I
thought I would focus my time on the impacts of conservation
programs on the Great Lakes watershed today. The Great Lakes
are a national treasure, but they are in peril from a diversity
of threats, including wetland loss and degradation and excess
nutrients and pollutants.
Conservation programs in the farm bill are a major factor
in reducing and eliminating these threats, and there are a
couple of examples that have contributed to the health of the
Great Lakes, and I would like to bring those to your attention
today.
The Wetlands Reserve Program, or WRP, has been instrumental
in helping farmers find better ways for those extremely
difficult places to farm and to restore vital wetlands. In
Muskegon County, Michigan, WRP is being used in conjunction
with the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and State-funded
wildlife conservation programs in a partnership of local,
State, private, and Federal partners to remove historic
phosphorus levels, to filter agricultural waterways, to provide
wildlife habitat, and to restore fishing and swimming in Mona
Lake. We need more of these types of innovative and
collaborative partnerships as we move forward.
WRP needs to continue in this next farm bill so that
projects like this can continue to thrive. WRP is a great
incentive to restore wetlands on agricultural lands, which is
needed in other parts of our country that are seeing the
impacts of excess nutrients, such as Lake Erie, the Mississippi
River, and the Chesapeake Bay, to name just a few. DU supports
the consolidation of easement programs as developed by both
congressional agricultural committees late last year. However,
in order for WRP and other conservation programs to be
effective, technical assistance funds need to be commensurate
with Federal assistance funds.
Another key program is the Conservation Reserve Program and
its companion the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, or
CREP. Today we are fortunate to have in the room Dave and Pat
Jenkins. They grow corn, soybeans, fruits, and other vegetables
on their family farm along the Illinois River near Peoria,
Illinois. The Jenkins are active conservationists who were one
of the first families in Woodford County to enroll in the
Illinois River Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. Over
several years they have enrolled 89 acres in filter strips and
wetland wildlife habitat. Most recently, Dave and his brother
Dan enrolled another 83 acres of frequently flooded cropland in
the Wetlands Reserve Enhancement Program. Ducks Unlimited is
proud to be a conservation partner working with the Jenkins to
assist them with wetland restoration on their land.
CREP is a model program involving a Federal/State
partnership that is often enhanced and leveraged through
private partnerships with organizations like Ducks Unlimited
and Pheasants Forever.
The next farm bill should build upon the successful
partnerships like these. The regional partnership program
developed in the super committee report is a great idea that
needs to find its way in this next farm bill. Regional
partnerships fueled by local groups and supported by Federal,
State, and private funders are a key to accomplish watershed
approaches, and these partnerships are solutions that will
yield a good farm economy and a healthy, sustainable
environment.
The Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, is our Nation's most
successful wildlife conservation program, and it was reduced in
the 2008 farm bill. In 2012, over a million acres of CRP will
be expiring in the Dakotas with over 900,000 of those acres in
the prairie pothole region. The loss of pothole habitat will be
severe on the millions of ducks produced in the CRP acres, as
well as pheasants and other wildlife.
What does all that mean? Quite simply, it means jobs.
Hunters and anglers spend roughly $86 billion pursuing their
passions each and every year, and wildlife watchers spend
another $51 billion each year. These expenditures include
everything from hunting and fishing equipment to
transportation, hotel stays, and meals in small rural towns
across this great country. And these jobs are important and
cannot be export to other countries.
So when you are weighing how much and which programs to cut
in this upcoming bill debate--and we all understand that that
needs to happen--we ask you to think about, if you save money
by reducing conservation programs, there is a direct cost to
the outdoor recreation industry through loss of revenue and
jobs.
So, Madam Chairman and members of the Committee, a strong
conservation title yields great benefits to all sectors of our
society and our economy. Farmers and ranchers gain in
conserving soil, water, and air, the essential ingredients for
their economic success. Sportsmen and -women gain with healthy
populations of fish and wildlife and recreational lands, and
our working landscapes benefit through programs that protect
the quality of our precious water resources, keep the soil on
the land, and ensure nutrients and pesticides perform as they
should
Thank you, and know that Ducks Unlimited stands ready to
assist you in developing a strong conservation title in this
next farm bill. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Humphries can be found on
page 62 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Stoskopf?
STATEMENT OF DEAN STOSKOPF, WHEAT FARMER, STOSKOPF FARMERS,
HOISINGTON, KANSAS
Mr. Stoskopf. Chairwoman Stabenow, Ranking Member Roberts,
and members of this Committee, thank you for allowing me to
present you a central Kansas view of the conservation title of
this next farm bill.
After talking with many of my fellow producers, I would
like to share the following guidelines that I believe will
allow our conservation programs to continue the legacy of
success they have been: number one, keep programs simple;
number two, keep programs local; number three, keep the staff
of NRCS as friends and advisers to the farmers, not enforcement
agencies for the Federal Government.
Keeping conservation simple: A major component of
simplifying programs is the consolidation of programs, which we
have talked about today. There are a number of proposals before
you to do that, and to put them into three basic categories:
working lands, land retirement, and land easement programs.
Reducing complexity should reduce the overhead associated with
administering dozens of different programs and allow program
dollars to reach their intended purpose.
In working lands, I believe EQIP has become the workhorse
of the conservation program. It offers producers a wide range
of options and practices and results in many successful
partnerships. One program I am concerned does not offer that
same level of benefit for our investment is the Conservation
Stewardship Program. Although it is intended to be a
comprehensive approach to conservation with payments made for
implementing specific practices, I see compliance issues that
lead to mistrust and dollars being spent without the same level
of benefit of other programs.
The Conservation Reserve Program remains our premier land
retirement program. In Kansas, we have a little over 2.5
million acres enrolled in CRP. Last year, 60,000 acres were
hayed and more than 200,000 acres were grazed under the
emergency provisions of the CRP. I do see several potential
areas for improvement with regard to CRP's ability to mitigate
the effects of a major drought.
Number one, allow hay harvested from CRP land under an
emergency declaration to be sold. This regulation often
prevents one producer who may not have cattle from being able
to provide hay to another one who does. There is just not the
incentive there to do that.
Number two, expand emergency haying and grazing operations
beyond the disaster-declared counties. When a county has been
released to start emergency haying and grazing under extreme
drought, the area usually is already under that extreme
drought, and those grasses are not very good to hay or graze.
It has been too late. Allowing neighboring counties that are
not as drought-stricken to perform emergency haying and grazing
operations could greatly increase the amount of forage
available.
Number three, examine procedures for releasing counties for
emergency haying and grazing. The current provisions for
releasing a county work well when the severe weather is limited
to a small area, but it is too cumbersome a process for a
drought as large as the one in 2011.
Number four, allow the State FSA committee to determine
which CRP practices are eligible for managed haying and grazing
and emergency haying and grazing. Local and State entities are
in the best position to make decisions regarding practices on
CRP acres.
The Conservation Reserve Program continuous sign-up has
also yielded tremendous environmental benefits and is an
example of prudent use of available dollars. It simply makes
sense to expand the enrollment of highly sensitive areas of
land, typically in smaller tracts such as buffers, filters or
strips, and other areas that improve the soil, water, and
wildlife habitat quality.
Keeping conservation local: Every region of the country has
different conservation needs and requires locally tailored
solutions. Farmers working with the local NRCS staff are best
able to develop those solutions that will work well for their
areas.
Working land programs should be administered as locally as
possible, and no higher than the State level. Local landowners,
tenants, and advisers have a much better understanding of the
needs in their area as well as the solutions that will work.
Advice and support versus enforcement: NRCS staff and the
staff of the local conservation district have always worked
cooperatively with local farmers to advance conservation. As
farmers, we trust those advisers. If NRCS becomes an
enforcement agency, that trust will be lost, along with the
cooperation.
Thank you for the opportunity to address your Committee
today for taking my views and opinions into consideration as
you deliberate on the conservation title.
Cooperation between ag producers and the Government has
created a legacy of positive conservation efforts in this vast
country. Together we can continue this legacy for future
generations.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stoskopf can be found on
page 87 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mattson?
STATEMENT OF CARL R. MATTSON, PRESIDENT, MATTSON FARMS, INC.,
CHESTER, MONTANA
Mr. Mattson. Good morning. Thank you, Chairwoman Stabenow,
Ranking Member Roberts, Montana Senator Baucus, and members of
the Committee, for the opportunity to speak to you today about
something very important to me.
My name is Carl Mattson, and I have farmed with my family
near Chester, Montana, my entire life. We operate a successful,
no-till, dry land wheat farm near the Canadian border.
The wind blows in Montana; always has. During the 1960s,
while in grade school, I recall my school bus being sent home
early due to blowing dust. As we bounced along the dirt road,
the driver would occasionally stop and wait for the dust to
clear so he could safely continue. Our son is 33, lives where I
grew up, and has never experienced dust like that.
The implementation of conservation practices works.
Many CRP acres in Montana, suitable for farming, will not
be re-enrolled in CRP. We must protect our conservation
investment. So it is critical that farmers have the incentives
and assistance needed to farm these acres in a sustainable way.
Today we find ourselves standing at an important crossroads
for U.S. ag policy, especially for conservation programs. What
we do here matters to U.S. farmers.
By 2050, our world will face the daunting prospect of
having to increase food production by as much as 70 to 80
percent. The reality is that much of the need will and must be
met here, by U.S. farmers and ranchers. Worldwide food security
is important, and it is not just about feeding people. It is
about creating political stability, averting famine, and
preventing despair and disease.
For those of us meeting that need on American farms and
ranches, we must balance the competing demands of high
productivity with the need to maintain overall sustainability
within our agricultural system. We must find ways to generate
more without degrading soil and water quality or creating
further losses to limited wildlife habitat. Just maintaining
our current levels of conservation practices, frankly, may not
be enough to meet the unprecedented requirements of feeding 9
billion people.
Investing now to enhance and protect our natural resource
base is crop insurance for a nation, a prudent risk mitigation
strategy initiated by this generation to feed the next.
EQIP and CSP provide the incentive platform needed to
assist farmers with the implementation of conservation
practices so important to the sustainability of our working
lands.
On the Mattson farm, we aggressively pursued and helped
pioneer the adoption of no-till farming and precision ag
techniques in Montana.
To strengthen conservation in the next farm bill, we must
recognize and avoid perverse incentives. ``Early Adopters'' are
visionaries that conquered the learning curve for each new
conservation practice. They provide the local knowledge
necessary for large-scale adoption of new conservation
practices by others. Our capacity to meet the future demands
will require significant breakthroughs in conservation
practices. The next farm bill must create an atmosphere where
innovators are encouraged to innovate.
As a Nation, we must find innovative ways to replace top-
down regulation with proactive voluntary approaches, such as
USDA's Sage Grouse Initiative. The key to the initiative's
success is shared vision of wildlife conservation through
sustainable ranching. What is good for ranching is good for
wildlife.
In closing, I stress that American agricultural producers
like me care about conservation and are committed to enhancing
the working lands and rural communities that provide food and
fiber for our Nation. Innovative, flexible, and voluntary
approaches are the foundation on which we reaffirm our ongoing
commitment to food production and natural resource
conservation.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mattson can be found on page
68 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mosel?
STATEMENT OF DARREL MOSEL, FARMER, DARREL MOSEL FARM, GAYLORD,
MINNESOTA
Mr. Mosel. Good morning, Chairwoman Stabenow and members of
the Senate Agriculture Committee, and thank you for this
opportunity to testify before you today.
Currently, I am using some of the working lands
conservation programs like the CSP. These are some of the most
important investments that our farm bill can make in ensuring
food security, protecting our natural resource base, and
keeping farmers farming. My family and I operate a diversified
crop and dairy farm in Sibley County near Gaylord, Minnesota. I
am active in several farm organizations, and I am here today
with the Land Stewardship Project.
I have been farming for 3two years, and at the present
time, our farm is both organic and conventional. Presently,
about 40 percent of our acreage is corn, 30 percent is
soybeans, and the remainder is split between small grains and
alfalfa. We milk Holsteins and operate a small feedlot.
About 25 percent of our crops are fed to our livestock, and
the remainder is marketed through various means. Some goes to
the local ethanol plant, which I have shares in. The rest is
sold either as organic feed to organic farmers or sold to local
co-ops in our area.
Sibley County has been blessed with productive soils, and
it has been our family's good fortune to have the opportunity
to farm in this community. Both of my sons, Christopher and
Michael, are hoping to join my farm operation someday. I hope
they can do that.
But like most agricultural areas, we have natural resource
demands. In particular, wind and soil erosion is a significant
problem, and water quality are serious concerns in my area. I
fundamentally believe that we farmers need to be stewards of
the land. We must be constantly mindful of what we are doing
from year to year on the land and be sure that it will not
impact the land's ability to provide for the future.
One of the programs I have had the opportunity to take
advantage of, the CSP, allows farmers to farm and at the same
time enhance their conservation performance in their
operations. In 2009, I started a 5-year contract with the CSP
program, and I receive about $15,500 a year. I received
recognition for a lot of the conservation efforts that I
employed over the years, like the waterways, the no-till, and
split nitrogen applications. And with the Conservation
Stewardship Program, I am able to add a number of new
conservation enhancement ideas that enable me to do more
conservation on my farm.
One of the conservation enhancements I elected to use that
fits my farm was the resource-conserving crop rotation. A few
years back at my wife's farm where she grew up, we noticed a
lot of erosion problems. A simple 2-inch rain would cause
irreparable damage on the 40-, 50-acre slopes. With the
Environmental Quality Incentive Program, we laid out contour
strips on that piece of ground. And now with Conservation
Stewardship Program, I am able to manage and maintain those
contour strips. In my experience, the two programs, EQIP and
Conservation Stewardship, work together while both being
distinctly different in what they offer.
Another enhancement that I took advantage of was a more
comprehensive integrated pest management. This year I will be
investing $5,000 to create GPS maps and equip my equipment with
global positioning systems. It helps me to better target
pesticides. I will reduce the overlap in spraying, which is
good for the environment and good for my pocketbook.
The pressures in agriculture are immense, and I am
concerned that we are losing a diversity of crops and farms
that are good for rural communities, the environment, and our
economy. I believe the Conservation Stewardship Program is part
of the answer to helping maintain diversity on the land.
Without the Conservation Stewardship Program, it would have
been more profitable the last couple of years for me to plant
my entire farm in continuous corn. But with the Conservation
Stewardship Program, I was able to maintain a four-crop
rotation which helps reduce erosion and increases water
retention, something we needed during the drought last summer.
I think the $15,000 is a good investment because it is going to
farmers to do good things.
As deliberations continue on the next farm bill, I urge
members of this Committee to maintain a strong funding base for
the CSP program. That would be my main recommendation. I wish
more of the farm bill was like that.
Additionally, I encourage incorporating greater
transparency into the Conservation Stewardship Program as well
as all farm programs in ensuring that the Conservation
Stewardship Program has strong integrity and benchmarks.
I appreciate this opportunity to share my experiences and
speak to today on what I believe is an effective program in
supporting farmers and the outcomes we want from agricultural
policy. I look forward to any questions members of the
Committee may have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mosel can be found on page
73 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Mr. Garber?
STATEMENT OF EARL GARBER, PRESIDENT-ELECT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
OF CONSERVATION DISTRICTS, BASILE, LOUISIANA
Mr. Garber. Good morning, Chairwoman Stabenow, Ranking
Member Roberts, and members of the Committee. On behalf of the
National Association of Conservation Districts and our 3,000
member districts across the country, I want to thank you for
the opportunity to be here today.
As you know, I currently serve as President Elect of the
National Association of Conservation District. I own a rice,
soybean, and hay farming operation in Basile, Louisiana, and I
might add it is right in the middle of the migratory bird
habitat initiative. I saw firsthand how well it worked. I have
served as a board member of the Acadia Soil and Water
Conservation District in southwest Louisiana since 1981. I know
firsthand the value and the necessity of strong conservation on
the land.
Conservation districts are a critical link to the success
of implementing conservation in America. We were the delivery
system set up in the 1930s to set the work priorities, to help
producers implement practices with accountability, to provide
resource support for delivery, and to bring partnerships and
coalitions together.
It is extremely important that we protect conservation
funding. Simply put, conservation works. Conservation is a tool
that is available to every producer, and it helps producers
avoid regulations. Producers are already faced with the
challenge of doing more with less. With a further decrease in
funding, the implementation of farm bill programs would be an
additional challenge to the producer. While we understand the
current economic climate, we must also acknowledge the
investment of putting conservation on the ground.
Technical assistance is critical in ensuring farm bill
programs are implemented with accountability. Technical
assistance dollars will be more important than ever to ensure
that we have adequate capabilities to get conservation
delivered.
We are in a situation where additional cuts to conservation
programs above the $23 billion submitted to the super committee
by your Committee will put the very viability of these programs
at risk. Congress needs to determine whether conservation and
protection of natural resources today is more important than
the escalated costs of repair in the future.
In light of the budget situation, thank you for recognizing
the value of drafting a common-sense framework to submit to the
super committee. You demonstrated strong bipartisan, bicameral
support for locally led conservation programs that streamlined
and increased efficiency wherever possible. For this reason,
NACD supports consolidation of programs as an important part of
the conservation title and Chief White's Conservation Delivery
Streamlining Initiative that he referred to earlier this
morning in the field. Individual private landowners will
benefit from streamlining when programs are easier to access
and manage.
As we look at consolidation, we must be careful not to lose
any of the critical program functions that help complete the
cycle of resource needs on the land, for example, forestry
practices in the EQIP program. As a small private landowner
owner myself, I know that if I did not have this assistance, a
portion of my farm would lack the management it needs, such as
technical assistance for stand improvement and other forest
practices.
Another example of consolidation includes farm bill
easement programs. Easements retain working lands which over
time include the operation and maintenance components that fee
simple acquisitions do not. We must assure that the easement
programs are maintained to provide for protection of our
farmlands, our wetlands, and highly erodible soils. The
easement programs provide a buffer effect to land use change
which occur on many fronts of our society as the population
grows and more demand is put on our natural resources. Thus,
easements effectively secure the natural resources being
protected by conservation practices to achieve economic and
environmental benefits for future generations.
Conservation programs provide a strong risk management
tool. Mitigating risk for producers, landowners, homeowners,
and anyone who buys insurance is possible. This past year, we
have seen severe weather events from intense drought to extreme
rainfall. Locally led, incentive-based conservation practices
are the key to protecting our natural resources across the
diversity of the landscape. Every acre counts.
Agriculture is as diverse as the potatoes and specialty
crops in the Northeast, as the Midwest grains, as the
Mississippi Delta small grains and cotton and produce, and the
rangeland of the West. All conservation programs work together
to reach across the entire spectrum of resource needs.
Depending on location, the management of resources varies.
Different regions have different needs. NACD understands and
promotes the importance of locally led resource management to
address the diversity of these needs across the Nation.
In conclusion, these farm bill programs show a track record
of success, and every dollar spent has seen a return. Because
of the 2008 farm bill, we are better prepared to meet future
resource needs, and we must continue to fund these programs. As
a producer, I have used many of these programs in my own
operation and know firsthand the tremendous value and return on
investment they bring to the producer. I have had the
opportunity to participate in EQIP, CSP, and land treatment
watershed programs to implement conservation practices
addressing local resource conservation concerns on my farm.
This concludes my testimony. Thank you again for the
opportunity to be here today, and I would be glad to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Garber can be found on page
59 in the appendix.]
Chairwoman Stabenow. Well, thank you very much, and thank
you to each of you.
I understand Senator Baucus is going to have to leave, so I
will turn first to you.
Senator Baucus. Thank you very much and I thank Senator
Roberts for letting me go first.
Mr. Mattson, I wanted just to compliment you on the basic
core of your testimony, namely, that with increased food demand
in the world in the next 10, 15, 20, 30 years, we have got to
spend much more effort in our conversation practices so we can
produce more without degrading our soil.
Last week, I was in Russia, primarily to advocate and push
the repeal of Jackson-Vanik legislation so the United States
will grant PNTR to Russia. I think it makes eminent sense that
we Americans do so. I will not go into all the reasons now why.
But I was impressed with the competition in Russia, too, in
producing food.
I was at a John Deere assembly plant just outside of
Moscow, and I there learned about the tractors they are
assembling. John Deere builds tractors in the United States and
takes them apart and ships the parts over to Russia and then
they are reassembled over in Russia. And it is not just John
Deere, but it is Caterpillar and lots of other American
companies that are doing this because of the great potential of
agricultural production in Russia.
This fellow, the plant manager, said to me that in Russia,
the manager of far will say, okay, to an operator, you just get
on that combine and you just go that direction straight all day
long--until about midday, and then at midday you turn around
and come back. They have not even gotten to the end of the
place. There is just so, so much arable and productive soil in
Russia.
They think that there is going to be a huge additional
production in Russia, and they are building the infrastructure
so they can get the grain to market. So they are working, too,
to provide--in fact, I heard the same figure from them that you
just gave me today. They said between 70 and 80 percent by the
year 2050--we are going to have to increase 70 percent world
production by the year 2050. So, A, you are doing the right
thing. But, B, we have got competition, too, if we are going to
produce food for people all around the world.
I would like your thoughts about which of these
conservation programs you think really work the best. I assume
EQIP works pretty well. You were the first in Montana to get a
CSP contract. That says a lot for you. And one of the witnesses
said CSP does not work terribly well. If you could just tell me
what you think about CSP and EQIP and how we can improve upon
them, and maybe talk a bit about CRP as we get--I think about 6
million acres are going to come out of CRP this year because
the commodity prices are up and farmers want to produce rather
than just keep some acres in CRP. But how do we make our
conservation programs work even better so that we can still
produce more?
Mr. Mattson. Senator Baucus, thank you. You are correct on
the CSP. I was the first in Montana to receive a contract, and
I received that contract under the 2005 Conservation Security
Program. And the mantra there was, ``Reward the best and
motivate the rest.'' And following 7 years of drought, I was
motivated by the significant dollars involved in the program,
and for the first time in a long time, I was in the right place
at the right time with the right qualifications to be ready for
this program.
We took this program, and although we were involved in a
lot of processes, we used it to expand each and every thing
that we did. We further refined our no-till; we increased
wildlife habitat; we intensified our soil testing; and we
expanded our recordkeeping; but most importantly, we continued
to add GPS facilities to every field operation that we have.
But one of the greatest benefits in that program was my
neighbors' transitioning to CSP. At that point in time, the
whole idea of motivation worked. CSP rewarded me for what I was
doing, but it motivated 30 or 50 other neighbors of mine to
make the switches to these sorts of things.
Senator Baucus. So they saw what you were doing and said,
``Hey, Carl is doing this. It looks like a good thing''?
Mr. Mattson. Well, ``Carl is doing this, and Carl got paid
to do this, and it looks like a really good thing.'' So there
was a----
[Laughter.]
Senator Baucus. They wanted to get paid, too.
Mr. Mattson. Yes, they wanted theirs, too.
Now, the program changes, but CSP right now is the program
that is bringing these conservation practices onto the use on
the working farms. The only problem I see right now, there is a
little--in the old program, we were looking at a high standard
to enter the program so people were adding their own no-till,
they were adding their own GPS, and so on and so forth. Now
there is a little bit of hesitation--although the programs are
widely used, there is a little bit of hesitation on the part of
farmers to step out and put these things in place until they
have the opportunity to participate in the CSP program. So
there may be some room for consideration there on how we do it.
The EQIP program
Senator Baucus. Would you just comment--I know my time is
up--on the Sage Grouse Initiative? Is that working? Does that
make sense? My sense is that it is working and does make sense,
but you are on the ground, you are the guy. What do you think?
Mr. Mattson. I think it is outstanding. Montana, as you
know, is the birthplace of the Sage Grouse Initiative, and
since that time there are 11 States involved, 400 ranchers, and
the interest has been overwhelming in the program as a whole.
In 2 short years, we have improved conservation, we have
reduced bird deaths, we have improved beef production, we have
improved grouse numbers, in addition to adding 208,000 of
easement acres and another 1.3 million acres of grouse-friendly
grazing management plans.
The agreement between NRCS and FWS is a landmark event, and
it promises a certain degree of certainty that farmers need and
ranchers need to proceed. And what this does, what SGI does, is
turn a problem into an opportunity and encourages cooperation.
Senator Baucus. Great. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mattson. You are welcome.
Senator Baucus. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairwoman Stabenow. You are welcome.
Let me go back and ask Mr. Trandahl and Ms. Humphries about
partnerships, because there are so many different pieces to
this, but we know that we leverage dollars and create real
opportunities by partnerships. Both of you have talked about
that. And I am wondering if you might speak a little bit more
about the challenges in realizing landscape level conservation
successes and what kinds of additional technical or financial
resources would help you as partners to get the real
conservation results that we are looking for.
Mr. Trandahl. Okay, I guess I will start and then Becky
will follow. I would say that the most important thing in a
partnership is making certain that we have clarity of what we
want the outcome to be. And getting clarity from the Federal
agencies in terms of what their goals are and seed resources
out of the Federal agencies, we are then able to build a
comprehensive strategy in terms of how to build programs to get
to those specific outcomes.
Then for the foundation, we go through normally a
competitive process. We literally put an RFP out into a region
to say this is the strategy that we are attempting to
accomplish and here are the components of implementation to
that strategy.
One of those generally is an outreach and education
component to the private landowner, of which we have relied on
Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, you name it, multiple
organizations to literally get out in the field and knock on
doors to explain what this strategy is all about and what
programs are available and what resources are available out
there.
On the private fundraising side, again, knowing that there
is a clear outcome and strategy attracts private investment.
And, you know, my job is to get out there and to then find
those private dollars to invest alongside.
By law, we are required in many cases to raise 1:1 private
dollars to those public dollars that come through the
foundation. We have a track record of raising more than 3.5:1.
So the private dollar stimulation has been incredibly
successful, and if we look at the foundation just through the
last 3 or 4 years, you know, our growth continues to be 20
percent annually. So those private dollars are available if we
decide to deploy the right approach to them.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Great. Ms. Humphries?
Ms. Humphries. All right. I would add that except coming
from a State director perspective, I would strongly encourage
we look at some of the planning efforts that are already in
place. I will give you a for instance.
In Michigan, we already have a pretty good plan in place
with the State agency in taking a look at restoration for
waterfowl management. And so encouraging NRCS to work with
those existing plans to accomplish the goals that we want to
achieve gets at your vision that you mentioned.
Second of all, we need those technical assistance dollars
that I mentioned in my testimony. They are really paramount.
And we need to make sure that we are leveraged additional
dollars. At Ducks Unlimited, when we build these comprehensive
partnerships, we like to bring in local partners as well as
other NGOs, as well as Government partners. But many times we
leverage dollars so that we are, you know, at least 4:1,
sometimes as much as 10:1. And then by having the large NGOs
involved, you can make sure you have good accountability for
that funding also. We have the practices in place. We can track
it well and make sure that we are pulling this whole leverage,
this agreement together. Those regional partnership programs
that I mentioned earlier that are talked about are just
excellent because they involve it at the local level as well as
the regional and the State level.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Great. Thank you.
In just the brief amount of time I have, I would ask our
other four witnesses, when we talk about conservation, you have
all talked about the importance for your operations. But I
wonder if any of you would want to just expand a little bit on
the changes in production, any experiences in terms of fewer
losses, or any other noticeable results that you have had as it
relates to conservation programs. Yes, Mr. Mattson?
Mr. Mattson. Chairwoman Stabenow, I can honestly say that
each and every conservation practice that we have added on our
farm has resulted in a financial return for every effort we
have had. We add no-till, we started saving water, which turned
into more wheat, which turns into more dollars. We add GPS
technology, which cuts back on overlap. On our farm, we figure
over 4 percent in overlap without GPS equipment, and that 4
percent is completely eliminated. And not only is the cost of
that 4 percent eliminated, but it is the economic and the
environmental issue that is eliminated, too. We are now farming
right on the line.
So it is very easy for me to look in the conservation
practices because they all seem to turn around and end up in a
positive way at the end of the year.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Does anyone else briefly want to
comment? Yes, Mr. Garber?
Mr. Garber. Ms. Stabenow, my farm is in the coastal prairie
of southwest Louisiana, as I said earlier, and if you can
envision, the upper part of the farm is fairly flat, and that
is where we produce rice and soybeans. And then I have a
portion of the farm that becomes highly erodible land as it
drops to lower elevation, which is in pasture and hay. And then
the other portion where the highly erodible land is, it is in
improved pine. And then I have some bottomland hardwood.
So as I took these practices and implemented them, it did
absolutely help my farm. But the beauty part of it is, as I
look at that land and I look at what I have done with the help
of the cost-share programs and the programs that are available
through CSP, EQIP, and what have you, I see a farm that will be
there for my children. It will be there for the future. It is a
productive farm, and the benefit is to the whole society in the
fact that it will be a productive farm making food, fiber, and
fuel for the future.
Thank you.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you very much.
Yes, Mr. Mosel?
Mr. Mosel. Chairwoman Stabenow, I have been involved for
the past 10 years on our local lake committee. We have had the
local biology department from Mankato State University studying
the quality of the water and the watershed coming into that
lake. I can see that on my farm, with having the diversity of
crops that I do through the CSP program, there is no question
that I have seen a reduction in erosion and retention of water
on my farm because of the diversity of crops. I guess the CSP
program has very good quality through it also, and I would not
want to have any of that reduced. But the CSP program works
really well with that program, I do not think one takes away
from the other. I would hope to see CSP further in my area.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Stoskopf?
Mr. Stoskopf. Yes, I will agree with pretty much everything
the other panelists have said. My parents started conservation
work in the 1930s during the middle of the Dust Bowl, building
shelterbelts, and starting waterways, and we just recently used
the EQIP program to renovate that shelterbelt that was put in
in 1938. So it is a continuing process on our farm.
The CRP has had tremendous benefits. The other EQIP
programs that we have been able to utilize, every one is very
beneficial to our operation.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Great. Well, thank you to each of you.
My time is more than up, but, Mr. Garber, I did want to say I
started as a county commissioner in public service, and the
soil conservation district was something that I learned about
very quickly, and the importance of the conservation districts
has been something I have paid attention to throughout my
career.
And I also want to put an editorial comment. You mentioned
about the budget, and, you know, we have got to work very hard
to make sure we get the right budget resolution and the right
dollars available. The $18 billion that the House passed last
year in conservation cuts, if that were to happen again this
year, if that is the number we were dealing with, it would make
it very hard to continue any of what we are talking about here.
So we have been working together on our Committee and the
leadership in the House, and hopefully we will be in a position
where we can do the things that we think are important here in
terms of having the level of resources and flexibility that we
need.
Senator Roberts?
Senator Roberts. Thank you, and thank you to all the
witnesses, and thank you for your comments to the questions of
the distinguished Senators.
Dean, I like the guidelines you have in your testimony:
Keep programs simple, keep programs local, let the USDA staff
provide assistance, not enforcement. I think that we tend to
forget some of those basics when we draft legislation and new
programs. You know and I know that the number one issue that we
hit whenever I am out in Kansas--I just spent 10 days there--is
overregulation and enforcement. So that poses a real problem.
You have some specific ideas about CRP and emergency haying
and grazing. I appreciate that. I know sometimes the Government
is not as responsive as it should be. Could you just tell me,
what did you and your neighbors experience last year during the
drought, more especially since we are still dry?
Mr. Stoskopf. Thank you, Senator. Our operation is in the
center of the State, so the extreme drought that was in
southwest Kansas and caught Texas and Oklahoma was the lead to
implementing a lot of the releases of CRP acres for haying and
grazing, which helped us because we fell right in line with the
other areas that were in trouble. So this year, we had pretty
timely release of those acres to utilize. That has not always
been the case. Usually it is a lag that is several months later
than we really needed it. So from that perspective, it worked
pretty well.
The haying and grazing, the one comment that was presented
earlier in your question of burning the hay or not being able
to utilize hay off of some of those acres, it was really a
disincentive for people that did not have their own cattle. You
could give the hay to somebody else or let them graze, but they
had to give up 25 percent of their payments in order to be a
good neighbor to somebody else. And that really limited some of
the acres that could have been utilized when we were
desperately in need of forages throughout the country.
The other area that would be helpful is we have CRP several
counties away that was not in the drought-declared areas
ineligible for haying and grazing. It was an area that,
fortunately, had good rainfall. The hay was in excellent
condition--rather, the grass was. It could have been utilized
by a lot of people from our area south, but since it was not in
a designated disaster area, it could not be utilized.
So the idea of double dipping or getting more money when
forages were as tight as they were this last year and this
winter, some of those kind of activities would be very helpful
to the cattlemen across the areas in trouble.
Senator Roberts. I appreciate that very much.
Jeff, you have already talked about your 3:1 match when you
are required to have 1:1, so I congratulate you on that. Kansas
has over half a million acres in expiring CRP contracts,
probably the leading State. Is the foundation looking at the
potential impact of the acreage shift in CRP? And are you
working on any of the acres coming out of CRP?
Mr. Trandahl. Yes, we do an enormous amount in terms of
reaching out to producers to understand what conservation
practices can be done beyond CRP and how to convert. NRCS is
standing up a series of programs in order to try to help
producers finding themselves in that situation. Hopefully we do
not see all the acres coming out of CRP, though, and hopefully
this Committee can act on CRP in a way that we can see maximum
enrollment possible.
Thank you.
Senator Roberts. That is what we are going to try to do.
Madam Chairman, we heard Senator Baucus talk about this,
you have talked about it, I have talked about it, about when we
start a farm bill, we know we have 17 seconds to talk to
somebody before there is a high glaze on the farm bill.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Right.
Senator Roberts. So during those 17 seconds, it is pretty
important, and I think every witness here has touched upon this
in terms of the value of these conservation programs. If we are
going to feed 9 billion people in a couple of decades, in other
words, if we step up on a humanitarian basis, but also in
regards to stability around the world, you and I both have
talked about this: Show me a country that cannot sustain itself
in regards to its own food supply, you have got chaos. When you
have chaos, you have instability. When you have instability,
you have terrorism. And you see what is happening in the
Mideast where the Arab Spring has turned into an Arab
nightmare. What they want is a stable food supply, number one.
So on behalf of our own efforts to achieve world stability
and national security, everything that you are talking about
plays into a much larger role, and what I am trying to figure
out is when we are cutting ag research, cutting conservation
programs, and still have to feed 9 billion people down the road
and double ag production, how are we going to do this?
I appreciate your help. I appreciate your constructive
ideas, and I thank you all for coming.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Well, thank you very much, Senator
Roberts. You and I have spoken and are sharing joint concerns
about ag research and conservation, and, again, I just have to
stress that, you know, we need to make sure we do not see a
level of cut coming out of the House that makes it impossible
for us to be able to write a farm bill and certainly create a
conservation title. So we have got a lot of work to do together
on this to make sure we can address the need and to be
responsible in deficit reduction, but also address our other
responsibilities.
Senator Klobuchar has joined us, and, again, thank you very
much. Senator Klobuchar?
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It is
good to be back. I was over on the floor giving a speech on my
other life, which is judicial confirmations, but I am glad to
be back here where things are a little more normal.
Mr. Mosel, have you enjoyed being on the panel so far? Has
anyone asked you a question except me?
Mr. Mosel. Yes.
Senator Klobuchar. Do you want to turn your microphone on
so we can hear you? Okay, good.
Now, you know our State has the greatest number of farmers
I think it is over 2,300--using the Conservation Stewardship
Program, and the program consistently is in high demand for
every sign-up. Why do you think our State has done well with
it? And what do you see as its strengths and how it could be
improved?
Mr. Mosel. Well, thank you, Senator Klobuchar. For me
personally, when I saw the Land Stewardship Project was
advertising, I felt it was important for all farmers to think
about participating. I guess I would look at our state--and
maybe it is not that different in other states, but we have the
major river system in Minnesota which drains through our
primary ag region and then drains into the Mississippi. We do
not want to have any more soil leave our farms. I have plugged
my tile intakes with the blinding intakes and I have received
some assistance through NRCS for that.
As I was telling the Committee earlier, I currently serve
on a lake committee, and one of our responsibilities is to
cleanthe watershed. We are working with area farmers to put in
buffer strips and are encouraging conservation practices. This
Conservation Stewardship Program would be a great leap forward
if we could get more of the producers into it.
But so far I have not had any problems with the sign-up
process. I have to say it is not as transparent as I would like
to see it.
Senator Klobuchar. I think in your testimony you talk about
family farmers and how you think more of a focus should be on
family farmers in terms of conservation dollars. Do you have
any ideas on how you can make it easier for family farmers to
participate?
Mr. Mosel. Yes, if there was a way to make it somewhat more
transparent--I have had some neighbors, you know, they have
kind of gone in and gone through the process preliminarily, and
they got very-- somewhat confused by it, I think. So we do need
to make it a little easier for that. They need to sort of know
what the outcome is going to be so it does not affect their
bottom line.
Senator Klobuchar. Could you tell me how you use the EQIP
and CSP programs together to maintain your conservation
practices?
Mr. Mosel. We have a farm that my wife grew up on. Her
parents passed away a few years ago, and we run that farm. I
noticed when we took it over, we had a small rain-- or not a
small rain, but a normal rainfall, and the soil erosion was
immense. And so I worked with the local NRCS officer, and we
installed through the EQIP program, contour strips. I have a
12-row planter, and he set it up perfect for the planter.
Everything works great. I think maybe in years past that would
have been a problem, but now with the newer equipment and the
GPS equipment that I will be installing, these contour strips
are no longer a challenge. Now the erosion on that field is
almost minimal to zero. We have had some pretty good rains, and
when we have investigated, it has almost stopped completely.
CSP helps me to maintain those strips, I think.
You know, right now with the crop prices the way they are,
there would be maybe some advantage to me--or at least I would
be tempted, you know, to plant all corn. But with the CSP
program, it takes some of the sting out of staying in the four-
crop rotation.
Senator Klobuchar. Well, good. I am looking forward to
visiting your farm.
Mr. Mosel. Thank you.
Senator Klobuchar. I might need a GPS to get there.
[Laughter.]
Senator Klobuchar. But I plan on coming this year.
One last question I have for Ms. Humphries. You know,
wetlands restoration is very important, as we know, an
incredibly important conservation tool. And last year Senator
Thune and I sent a letter in support of funding for the North
American Wetlands Conservation Act, which leverages Federal
dollars against State, local, and private funding to complete
the conservation projects.
Could you tell me how organizations like yours, like Ducks
Unlimited, use this funding in order to maintain conservation
programs for wetlands?
Ms. Humphries. I would be most pleased to. Thank you.
Well, NAWCA funding is a critical link in that. What we do
is we wind up leveraging private dollars and State dollars
against the Federal dollars to go in and build partnerships on
our most critical wetland areas that we have identified. We use
that with a combination of State employees, Federal employees,
and also those volunteers, and we go in and do restoration, and
then typically we also like to go in and do acts that will help
preserve those lands in the future, put on conservation
easements, produce something that is going to make sure that it
is sustainable in the long run.
It is a great program. Quite frankly, NAWCA has provided a
tremendous incentive to go in and do wetland restoration around
the country. And it helps preserve those vital wetland areas
and our clean water that is so important to all of us.
Senator Klobuchar. Okay. Well, thank you.
Ms. Humphries. Thank you.
Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, all of you, for
your great work, and I look forward to working with you on this
farm bill. Thank you.
Chairwoman Stabenow. Well, thank you to each of you. This
has been extremely helpful, and we appreciate your insight.
This is a very, very important part of the farm bill, and as
you can tell from all the members' participating, there is a
great commitment and interest.
I would ask that any additional questions for the record be
submitted to the Committee clerk 5 business days from today.
That is by 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6th. And, again, we look
forward to working with you as we complete our farm bill
process.
The meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:43 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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A P P E N D I X
FEBRUARY 28, 2012
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DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
FEBRUARY 28, 2012
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
FEBRUARY 28, 2012
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