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Corn Vs. CRP: Finally, a Very Good Idea
Cancel that ambulance, but keep the engine running. CRP does not need CPR--just yet.
The crisis over the future of the Conservation Reserve Program was put on hold recently when Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns revealed the Bush Administration was postponing two very bad ideas, and pushing forward with a very good one.
All three ideas have grown out of the administration’s drive to increase ethanol production. The push for ethanol is a very green concept, but if farmers abandon CRP to capture the skyrocketing market for corn to supply ethanol plants, the bio-fuel craze could be very bad for wildlife. For several months it looked like that just might happen, but Johanns’ announcements have given the program a reprieve.
Bad Idea No. 1 was a proposal to reduce the allotment of CRP acres in the new Farm Bill from the current 39.2 million figure. But Johanns said flatly the administration would ask Congress to maintain the status quo. That’s not the 45 million acres authorized for CRP when Congress first approved the program in 1985, but it’s the next best thing. Nor is there any guarantee that Congress will fund the entire 39.2 million, but at least there won’t be objections from the White House--for now.
Bad Idea No. 2 was the request to allow no-penalty early withdrawals from CRP contracts. Johanns now says that won’t happen in 2007. But no decision would be made on 2008 until the fall, when the administration has a better idea on how much corn was actually planted, and how well the predicted harvest might meet demand.
Very Good Idea No. 1: The administration will increase funding for programs that encourage development of technology to produce ethanol from so-called “bio-mass”--prairies grasses and plant waste. Once these technologies are perfected, the pressure to plant corn will begin to ease. Better still, farmers would have a market-driven incentive to put more acres into native prairie grasses, actually enlarging the impact of CRP.
“We’re definitely not out of the woods on the threat to CRP just yet, but all of these developments give us some breathing room,” said Terry Riley, a farm policy specialist with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.
“We’re still going to need to watch very carefully, and push Congress to hold the line on the gains we’ve made in CRP.”
I think this is a perfect example of the new sorts of problems we are going to face with the looming energy crisis. We have been able to see that in attempting to develop new energies we might have lost thousands of acres of habitat and millions of dollars in funding for a "green" energy source. I think that similarly, switching our fossil fuels to electric energy could see a renewed call for new hydroelectric dams. Surprisingly those calls could come from the some of the same environmentalist who decried the creation of other dams not too long ago. In some fashion its terribly ironic that the increase in "green" electric cars could conceivably be a final nail in the coffin for salmon in the lower 48. I think that as conservationists we CANNOT be blind or caught unawares to ALL the coming consequenses of a declining oil reseource. This farm bill was a perfect example of the trade-offs that are going to occurr in the growing energy crisis.
Posted by: RPM | May 16, 2007 at 12:49 PM
While we still have a chance to avert our looming climate catastrophe by quickly transitioning to renewable energy sources via a moon-shot type federal project, if we instead see a big push to trade environmental problems by expanding dams, or ethanol or nukes via expanded federal subsidies, that's really just opportunistic lobbying by the next best positioned big energy industry.
Bob, your paper wrote a great article on the Dead Zone Sunday, pointing out the big push for Ethanol will have some significant impacts on Gulf fisheries if we don't head this off.
Too bad some major corporation doesn't own the wind or the sun, or we'd already be running our computers off truly renewable energy.
Posted by: Gulf Aaron | June 11, 2007 at 04:31 PM
It upsets me to here people talking about what we could & should do to improve geenhouse gases in the future!
I was successfully testing & running cars, trucks,and buses on ethanol 20 years ago, found out that we could mfg. ethanol from grass,potatoes,sugarcane and even even sea weed, and beer hops after it was used for making beer. We had made great strides in the price of manufacturing it and at that time we actually began making it for less than what it was sold.
Bio is used to help clean up diesel fuel but removing the sulfur was the biggest step in cleaning up diesel fuel. Our Mfg. Co. actually had a fuel cell engine operating in a test cell, way back then.
When that fuel price crises passed and gasoline prices went down, the companies and the government just told everyone working on it to stop. There was no more need for it!
We well knew back then that another crises would be back to haunt us, and our government and automotive companies should have continued improving the technologies on a lower level, not just give it up!
Posted by: | June 11, 2007 at 07:59 PM
I am an IA farmer, corn, beans and cattle. The eth. boom has been great for my bottom line but it is a serious mistake for our nation as a whole, it is a dead end, it takes more energy to produce than we get out of it.
Posted by: IA farmer | March 25, 2008 at 10:24 AM