Q: Why did you push for the USDA to open up CRP acres to emergency haying and grazing?
A: During my annual 99 county meetings, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) often gets raised by Iowa landowners and farmers. This year, I’ve heard from producers who are struggling to access enough hay to feed their livestock due to drought conditions across the state. In July, I joined the Iowa congressional delegation to push the USDA to approve emergency grazing on CRP contract acres. More than 2.2 million Iowans live in areas of drought, putting pressure on livestock producers to feed their animals. Opening up CRP acres will help provide immediate relief to producers by allowing new land to be opened up for feeding cattle. I’m glad the USDA listened and announced 46 Iowa counties are authorized for emergency haying or grazing on CRP acres. Emergency haying authorization ends on Aug. 31; emergency grazing authorization ends on Sept. 30, 2023.
The 26 counties approved for emergency haying or grazing include: Allamakee, Audubon, Benton, Buena Vista, Carroll, Cedar, Calhoun, Cherokee, Clarke, Clayton, Crawford, Decatur, Des Moines, Fremont, Henry, Humboldt, Ida, Jones, Louisa, Marion, Muscatine, Page, Pocahontas, Sac, Shelby and Washington. The USDA approved the following 20 Iowa counties for emergency haying based on the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP): Appanoose, Cass, Davis, Harrison, Jefferson, Keokuk, Lee, Lucas, Lyon, Mahaska, Mills, Monona, Monroe, Montgomery, Plymouth, Pottawattamie, Van Buren, Wapello, Wayne and Woodbury. Be mindful that eligible producers must first receive approval from their local county Farm Service Agency (FSA) office. Producers need to obtain a modified conservation plan from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRSC) before taking advantage of the emergency haying or grazing authorization. CRP rental payments won’t be impacted. For those producers in counties not eligible, check with your local FSA office to determine eligibility specific to your CRP acres. Contact your local USDA Service Center for more information or to request approval.
Q: What reforms in the new Farm Bill are you seeking to improve the CRP?
A: Nearly four decades ago, President Ronald Reagan signed the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) into law. Participating producers and landowners receive an annual rental rate in exchange for removing environmentally sensitive land from production for the duration of the 10-15-year contract. The USDA’s Farm Service Agency administers the voluntary program that was designed to control soil erosion, improve water quality and help stabilize commodity prices by taking marginal lands out of production. Since 1985, the CRP has helped prevent more than nine billion tons of soil from eroding, reduced runoff related to tilled cropland, created more than three million acres of restored wetlands and protected waterways with riparian buffer strips to help improve the sustainability of natural resources for generations to come.
As work continues in Congress to renew the five-year Farm Bill, I’m working to ensure the feedback I get from Iowans is heard loud and clear at the policymaking table. That includes securing improvements to the CRP. I’ve teamed up with Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey to introduce the bipartisan Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Reform Act to prioritize enrolling marginal farmland, rather than prime farmland. At my county meetings, I regularly hear concerns from younger and beginning farmers that they compete against CRP contract acres to access farmland. The federal government should not act as an unfair competitor and drive up the cost of cash rent. For decades, the CRP has been a valuable tool to protect fragile ecosystems and foster good stewardship of our natural resources to benefit the environment and long-term productivity and prosperity of America’s farms and ranches. However, entering large tracts of land into the program makes it more difficult for new and beginning farmers to get started farming. The reforms in our bipartisan bill would ensure the CRP is not used on highly-productive farmland and instead focus the acres in the program on highly-erodible land and target specific conservation practices for enrollment. It continues to promote conservation without creating barriers for beginning farmers who rent land to grow their crops and feed their livestock. Specifically, our bill would limit the CRP acreage cap at 24 million acres for fiscal years 2024-2028. It would increase incentives to enroll marginal farmland through continuous enrollment and grasslands categories, reduce the rental rate for general CRP sign-ups by 10% and extend the contract lengths to 30 years for marginal land. Making these improvements to the CRP will continue its mission to support environmental stewardship, as well as protect taxpayers and help the next generation of farmers get started. With only two percent of the people in America growing the food that feeds the other 98 percent, the Farm Bill can help the next generation of farmers by improving the CRP and sharpening the fiscal integrity of the farm safety net, including my bipartisan bill that would rein in payment abuses by putting a hard cap in total commodity support for one farm operation.
Senator Chuck Grassley is a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee and lifelong family farmer who operates his fourth-generation family farm in New Hartford, Iowa with his son and grandson.