On Saturday, we posted the MN Reformer article, USDA relaxes conservation program rules to boost crop production.
Today, Art Cullen demonstrates why he won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing for "editorials fueled by tenacious reporting, impressive expertise and engaging writing that successfully challenged powerful corporate agricultural interests in Iowa."
Please visit the newspaper to read all of the Editor's Notebook copy in Ripping up CRP is a terrible signal for the planet. Here's a sample:
. . . Last week, Vilsack dropped a bomb in conservation quarters: He would allow landowners to opt out of their final contract year under the Conservation Reserve Program to plow it up and plant feed grains.
That’s up to 4 million of the most marginal and highly erodible acres that are in CRP because they couldn’t grow wheat in the first place. But if you can insure it, what the hell?
Remember that those CRP acres that could come out of protection a year early in Iowa will grow corn that will not be used to feed starving people in Africa. It will feed hogs and ethanol plants. Half of that pork will go to Asia, not to Guatemala where refugees are fleeing hunger and drought.
It’s a step backwards. It lends credence to the argument that the Biden Administration really isn’t that serious about climate change. It gives the base of the Democratic Party and young people one less reason to get fired up about the mid-term elections.
Republicans are well-positioned to take back the House and the Senate. If so, the GOP will write the next farm bill and it will not put conservation at the center of it (or food security).
Biden and Vilsack promised bold action that would lessen agriculture’s significant contribution to the warming planet. What we have so far are maps for CO2 pipelines that will serve corn ethanol plants, and manure digesters in mega-dairies. And a pilot program for cover crops in BV County that might attract a couple thousand acres. Might. . . .
As we say, read the entire piece at the Storm Lake Time Pilot. Subscribe to the paper if you are able.
Photo: Certain landowners are paid by the government to remove their land from agricultural production. Photo courtesy of the Farm Service Agency.
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