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Outdoors: Farm Bill important to birds and wildlife
The Farm Bill, which is renewed every five to seven years, includes programs that provide important wildlife habitat, and the proposed 2008 Farm Bill is still being discussed in a conference committee in Washington, D.C.
Scott Hull, upland wildlife and Farm Bill coordinator for the Department of Natural Resources, says that although the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act, commonly known as the Farm Bill, has tremendous impact on wildlife populations, its main objective is food and nutrition.
Conservation programs are only about 6 percent of the Farm Bill, he said. But one large and important part of the conservation benefits is the Cropland Reduction Program, known as CRP, which puts highly erodible land into grassland or tree cover which provides habitat for wildlife.
Hull said that in 2007, Wisconsin landowners received $45.5 million for land set aside into CRP.
What was to be the 2007 Farm Bill, and now will be the 2008 Farm Bill, was passed by the House of Representatives in July. The Senate passed its version of the bill on December 14, and now both versions will be modified by the conference committee.
Hull said that both versions have some good things for conservation, including 39 million acres of CRP.
Both versions could include some land that previously was not considered as a commodity crop and thus could not previously be entered into CRP, which may benefit some Wisconsin landowners, Hull said.
"It is positive that both the House and Senate Committees have CRP reauthorized, but one problem is that President Bush's budget assumed no general CRP sign-ups for 2007 and 2008," he said.
The Wetland Reserve Program is included in the current bill, but there has been a problem with the appraisal process which eliminated the usefulness of the program in Wisconsin. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) has introduced a change to the program that could benefit wildlife in Wisconsin if it is included.
Other programs, including WHIP, GRP, and EQIP, were reauthorized in the bills.
Hull said that a new program, called "Open Fields," will provide incentives to states and tribes to provide public access to private land.
There are still unknowns, including how much funding will be made available for the programs and whether the President will veto funding requests.
"Even if it is reauthorized, we are losing CRP acres in Wisconsin, perhaps between 180,000 and 200,000 acres by 2010," Hull said. Many landowners are getting out of their CRP contracts because the prices of corn are high and they can make more money by paying the penalty and planting corn.
Hull said that in 2007 93.6 million acres were planted in corn, which is the highest since 1944. Wisconsin had just over 4 million acres planted to corn, which recently had a price of $5.13 a bushel.
The Farm Bill will be one of the most important programs for grassland wildlife, and wildlife enthusiasts are waiting to learn the final details that emerge from Congress' compromise committee.
