Harkin Remarks to the National Association of Conservation Districts

"I'm delighted to be here today with you.

"First and foremost, I want to thank all the conservation districts - and the many thousands of volunteers who serve on your governing boards - for the extraordinary work that you do.

"And I thank the National Association of Conservation District for the great job it is doing here in Washington. I particularly want to thank Olin Sims for testifying before our committee back in May and Krysta Harden for her tireless advocacy for conservation. I'd also like to greet the Iowa delegation: President Jerry Fine, executive director Deb Ryun, and the rest of the group.

"In the Senate Agriculture Committee, we are deep in the process of writing the next farm bill - which, of course, is about more than farms per se; it also encompasses rural development, energy, nutrition, and - extremely important in my book - conservation.

"Farm bills are of limited duration for a reason. Agriculture is a dynamic area of the economy, and the farm bill has to adjust to the needs of farmers and ranchers, and changes in the economy. We need a farm bill that is looking forward and preparing for the future, rather than one that looks backward at the policies and choices of the past.

"The biggest hurdle we face is money. Unless we secure additional resources, the farm bill will be extraordinarily difficult to write and pass without some pretty serious problems for members of my committee and on the Senate floor. On that score, we are making progress, but we're not there yet by any means.

"There are many priorities in the farm bill. First, we need to ensure that our agricultural producers have a good system of income protection against swings in the markets and weather. There is no place in America where agriculture is a bigger part of the economy than my home state, and I fully appreciate that we need to keep strong protections for producers who face hard times.

"At the same time, I appreciate that the fundamental safety net - not just for farmers, but for humankind - consists of the soil, water, air, plants, and animals that make life on this planet possible and sustainable. We have to be good stewards of the gifts that have been given to us!

"In addition to long-standing challenges in conservation, we face major new challenges. The price of corn is resulting in record plantings, and many producers are even bringing marginal land into production that can now profitably grow a crop.

"Planting on marginal land - land which otherwise might be used for grass or some other low intensity use - can be problematic, to say the least. As we look to the future, we need to recognize that these record plantings will take a terrible tool on the environment if they occur without using good conservation practices. The need for good conservation - conservation on working land - is greater than ever. If we are not careful, we could end up turning renewable fuels into a resource-depleting energy source, similar in some respects to fossil fuels.

"There are two key programs promoting working land conservation: the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which focuses on cost share for projects and incentives that help address existing problems, and the Conservation Security Program that I authored in the 2002 farm bill, that promotes good land stewardship. These two aspects of conservation policy - first helping producers solve problems or make specific changes to their practices, and second giving them incentives to take their conservation to even higher levels - are the route to long-term improvements in resource conservation.

"The Conservation Security Program was started with a simple premise - pay farmers not just for what they grow, but how they grow it. But rather than the broadly based program that we originally envisioned, the program was implemented on an extremely limited watershed-by-watershed basis. Farmers signed contracts only to be told that we did not have the money to fully pay them for the new practices they agreed to implement. Some producers were blocked from participating because of the crop they grow, such as specialty crop producers. And long term limits meant that under current law the program would continue to have anemic growth throughout the next farm bill.

"Clearly, the program as implemented with severe funding limits does not meet the vision we had for it. It does not meet the urgent, critical need that you folks see on the land every day.

"For the 2007 farm bill, I have a refinement that will consolidate, simplify, and streamline these two strong working land conservation programs into one even stronger program - creating a comprehensive program that reaches from individual projects to high levels of stewardship. I call it the Comprehensive Stewardship Incentives Program, or C-SIP.

"The new, comprehensive program has two sections - the Environmental Quality section focused on cost share and incentives to address individual projects or practices, and the Stewardship section that focuses on broad-scale long-term stewardship. Uniting EQIP and CSP will make it easier for producers and NRCS to work with the programs, eliminate overlaps and gaps, and provide incentives for producers to move from basic levels of conservation up to increasingly higher and more comprehensive treatment of resources of concern.

"The program would maintain full funding for the environmental quality section at current levels, with a specific allocation of mandatory funding every year. In the stewardship section, the program would allocate to each state an acreage amount to enroll in the program. My goal is to have enrolled around 80 million acres of working land in the stewardship section of CSIP by the end of the farm bill - twice as many as is authorized for the largest current conservation program, the Conservation Reserve Program.

"I share your view that "every acre of conservation counts." Technical assistance from NRCS is critical. One new feature of CSIP is the availability of technical assistance-only contracts. If all a farmer or rancher needs is assistance in creating a plan or the know-how to solve a conservation problem, these contracts will allow that. This has been the fundamental role of NRCS from the time of its creation more than seven decades ago.

"Again, let me thank you for the important work that you do all across America. Right now, it is urgently important that you contact your members of Congress, and that you impress upon them the fact that conservation programs - especially on working lands - are more important than ever."

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