Beth, I would like to share this with the Iowa directors of FSA, NRCS and CDI. You itemization clearly so many of the issues we county SWCD Commissioners are dealing with right now. Lack of qualified staff is top of my list!
Is there a link I can send Matt Russell, Jon Hubbert and John Whitaker plus the CDI board (I am a CDI board alternate)?
I so appreciate your focus on this issue. I will be attending a 2023 Farm Bill meeting next week with conservationists from IA and MN.
Beth-- I hope you can learn more from your local NRCS and county soil & water conservation district commissioners about the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP, not the CRP), which is complex but would be much more suited to the type of conservation you (and I) would like to encourage. EQIP is a similar program. Unfortunately many farmers and landowners shy away from the more complex programs and fail to ask enough questions at the outset, before signing contracts. Also unfortunately, CSP is underutilized and underfunded. But the ground level demand must be evident when one goes to lobby Congress. So perhaps more publicity about the benefits of CSP will help. We are hoping to sign up for a second 5 year CSP stint. It is a great program and I assume your CLL folks need to look into it.
Hi Josiah - thanks for your comments. We are in a few CSP programs on our farm (pollinator habitat, rotational grazing, etc). But choosing a program to be in was difficult as there was little leadership from the NRCS as to what to sign up for that would fit our goals. I also talked to one of the CLL members who was also handed the entire CSP list and told to go through it to pick out programs (as we were told too). So it becomes not only difficult to work through the program, but almost impossible to sign up for in the first place.
To me, it is another example of where we desperately need our NRCS agents to be well-trained and proactive if we want conservation programs to trickle down to the farm level. Many landowners are also not able to apply for CSP since they are not the ones doing the farming.
Right, the non-farming landowner is at a handicap. That is part of the complexity.
I do think that pushing any bureaucracy, government or corporate, is a must, so I suspect if local employees are uninformed, their supervisors need to know that they need more training....or need to bring in more informed staff to assist. No amount of government funding can solve that.
We have always been able to sit down with our NRCS staff and get all sorts of answers. Failing NRCS help, the local soil & water district commissioners may be helpful. I used to be one. I know it seems odd to need to enlist them, but they may well know more people in NRCS or the state level conservation programs who can help. Iowa has a wealth of informed people to ask.
P.S. My opinion---The failure to understand the rigidity of CRP is really not an excuse. That particular program is only designed as a temporary set-aside of farmable land, so it is to be expected that trees must be controlled. I am wondering whether many who sign up for CRP read the fine print (which is normally not so fine)......
While it is often possible to "farm the government" it is always possible to do the right thing on your own land and with your own resources/assets. Perhaps at the sacrifice of profit at taxpayer (always use the term "taxpayer" in lieu of "government") expense, one could make it work. If not, endeavor elsewhere.
Yes, like Josiah commented - the government payments for conservation (as I pointed out in the article) are limited. My overall point however is not only that conservation is expensive and should be supported by the public (it is for the public good), but also that we could disseminate much more knowledge to farmers if the county offices and extension functioned better. I would hope you are not focused only on the payment part of this discussion but also are interested in the idea that with the right experts available for farmers and landowners, we could help transition far more farmland to better practices.
Bob- Following up on Beth's comments. It would really help our land and our society if more landowners entered into crop share leases with their tenants. This is the opposite of the prevailing trend of course. We have a largely elderly land ownership base in the Midwest, and older people generally seek the security of cash rent arrangements, wanting steady income. Crop share leases tend to allow landowners to partake of the conservation cost-share programs more easily. All of this is beyond the scope of her article, but it all ties together.
I certainly cannot disagree with Beth's desire that more personnel at local offices have better training regarding conservation. I just know that the depth of training is higher in some offices than others....and that Extension and NRCS and our Iowa soil conservation service do have a great deal of expertise which can be tapped.
When we discuss, it is important to distinguish the various government programs from one another....and not lump them all into one big bad.....
Most farmers or landowners who benefit from any of the programs we are discussing are receiving cost-share assistance of 50% or less….. just to be clear. Unlike the crop insurance subsidy system and so-called freedom to farm….these conservation programs like CSP or Iowa’s assistance with terracing and cover crops are hardly what I would call “farming the government”.
Largely agree with you and Ms. Hoffman. Agree the conservation programs are confusing and expecting the inexperienced to choose amongst them is a fool's errand. I disagree about the money though--I thought the programs were unbelievably generous. I am two generations off the land but I inherited my father's farm habit--while he collected Northern Iowa parcels for their storied productivity I collected S.W. Iowa parcels for recreation, mainly rolling pasture and timber. We each managed our own land for years dealing with FSA, NRCS, operators, etc. I thought I was doing well (secured two dams, 9,600 trees, multiple grassy waterways, large areas of CRP and prairie chicken restoration) but when my father died and left me in charge of everything I had to get serious and engaged a farm manager. Shoulda' done it sooner. He not only revolutionized the northern Iowa businesses, bringing in quality operators and "FLEX" contracts, but he had a passion for conservation and greatly expanded my southern efforts with more ponds and contracts. He knew the ropes, the programs, the USDA personnel and the markets. And, he worked for a fraction of Hertz or Farmers National fees.
Please do share the name of your manager if you can. There are many out there who need a great recommendation for a manager who is doing important conservation work.
Thanks Mary Ellen - feel free to send the link to whomever you'd like to send it to!
https://inthedirt.substack.com/p/what-landowners-say-about-conservation/
Beth, I would like to share this with the Iowa directors of FSA, NRCS and CDI. You itemization clearly so many of the issues we county SWCD Commissioners are dealing with right now. Lack of qualified staff is top of my list!
Is there a link I can send Matt Russell, Jon Hubbert and John Whitaker plus the CDI board (I am a CDI board alternate)?
I so appreciate your focus on this issue. I will be attending a 2023 Farm Bill meeting next week with conservationists from IA and MN.
Mary Ellen Miller
Thanks, Beth! Very interesting and important insights!
Beth-- I hope you can learn more from your local NRCS and county soil & water conservation district commissioners about the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP, not the CRP), which is complex but would be much more suited to the type of conservation you (and I) would like to encourage. EQIP is a similar program. Unfortunately many farmers and landowners shy away from the more complex programs and fail to ask enough questions at the outset, before signing contracts. Also unfortunately, CSP is underutilized and underfunded. But the ground level demand must be evident when one goes to lobby Congress. So perhaps more publicity about the benefits of CSP will help. We are hoping to sign up for a second 5 year CSP stint. It is a great program and I assume your CLL folks need to look into it.
Hi Josiah - thanks for your comments. We are in a few CSP programs on our farm (pollinator habitat, rotational grazing, etc). But choosing a program to be in was difficult as there was little leadership from the NRCS as to what to sign up for that would fit our goals. I also talked to one of the CLL members who was also handed the entire CSP list and told to go through it to pick out programs (as we were told too). So it becomes not only difficult to work through the program, but almost impossible to sign up for in the first place.
To me, it is another example of where we desperately need our NRCS agents to be well-trained and proactive if we want conservation programs to trickle down to the farm level. Many landowners are also not able to apply for CSP since they are not the ones doing the farming.
Right, the non-farming landowner is at a handicap. That is part of the complexity.
I do think that pushing any bureaucracy, government or corporate, is a must, so I suspect if local employees are uninformed, their supervisors need to know that they need more training....or need to bring in more informed staff to assist. No amount of government funding can solve that.
We have always been able to sit down with our NRCS staff and get all sorts of answers. Failing NRCS help, the local soil & water district commissioners may be helpful. I used to be one. I know it seems odd to need to enlist them, but they may well know more people in NRCS or the state level conservation programs who can help. Iowa has a wealth of informed people to ask.
P.S. My opinion---The failure to understand the rigidity of CRP is really not an excuse. That particular program is only designed as a temporary set-aside of farmable land, so it is to be expected that trees must be controlled. I am wondering whether many who sign up for CRP read the fine print (which is normally not so fine)......
Love this thread . . . . . . .!
While it is often possible to "farm the government" it is always possible to do the right thing on your own land and with your own resources/assets. Perhaps at the sacrifice of profit at taxpayer (always use the term "taxpayer" in lieu of "government") expense, one could make it work. If not, endeavor elsewhere.
Yes, like Josiah commented - the government payments for conservation (as I pointed out in the article) are limited. My overall point however is not only that conservation is expensive and should be supported by the public (it is for the public good), but also that we could disseminate much more knowledge to farmers if the county offices and extension functioned better. I would hope you are not focused only on the payment part of this discussion but also are interested in the idea that with the right experts available for farmers and landowners, we could help transition far more farmland to better practices.
Bob- Following up on Beth's comments. It would really help our land and our society if more landowners entered into crop share leases with their tenants. This is the opposite of the prevailing trend of course. We have a largely elderly land ownership base in the Midwest, and older people generally seek the security of cash rent arrangements, wanting steady income. Crop share leases tend to allow landowners to partake of the conservation cost-share programs more easily. All of this is beyond the scope of her article, but it all ties together.
I certainly cannot disagree with Beth's desire that more personnel at local offices have better training regarding conservation. I just know that the depth of training is higher in some offices than others....and that Extension and NRCS and our Iowa soil conservation service do have a great deal of expertise which can be tapped.
When we discuss, it is important to distinguish the various government programs from one another....and not lump them all into one big bad.....
Most farmers or landowners who benefit from any of the programs we are discussing are receiving cost-share assistance of 50% or less….. just to be clear. Unlike the crop insurance subsidy system and so-called freedom to farm….these conservation programs like CSP or Iowa’s assistance with terracing and cover crops are hardly what I would call “farming the government”.
Largely agree with you and Ms. Hoffman. Agree the conservation programs are confusing and expecting the inexperienced to choose amongst them is a fool's errand. I disagree about the money though--I thought the programs were unbelievably generous. I am two generations off the land but I inherited my father's farm habit--while he collected Northern Iowa parcels for their storied productivity I collected S.W. Iowa parcels for recreation, mainly rolling pasture and timber. We each managed our own land for years dealing with FSA, NRCS, operators, etc. I thought I was doing well (secured two dams, 9,600 trees, multiple grassy waterways, large areas of CRP and prairie chicken restoration) but when my father died and left me in charge of everything I had to get serious and engaged a farm manager. Shoulda' done it sooner. He not only revolutionized the northern Iowa businesses, bringing in quality operators and "FLEX" contracts, but he had a passion for conservation and greatly expanded my southern efforts with more ponds and contracts. He knew the ropes, the programs, the USDA personnel and the markets. And, he worked for a fraction of Hertz or Farmers National fees.
Please do share the name of your manager if you can. There are many out there who need a great recommendation for a manager who is doing important conservation work.
Great analysis of the challenges with the federal conservation programs. I hope Secretary Vilsack listens to Climate Land Leaders.