1990 Farm Bill Forum 



Proceedings 



Rural Area Development 

 Association 

 Jim Stephens 



Agricultural Policy Subcommittee 



The Rural Area Development (RAD) Associa- 

 tion has not yet formulated a policy on agricul- 

 ture for the RAD Committee. We realize the im- 

 portance of a farm program that ser\-es its pur- 

 poses, including soil conscr\'ation, weed 

 control, and maintaining fair farm income for 

 the producers. 



RAD is made up of all segments of the economy 

 and society, which makes it tough to get on 

 track with one policy. We sent a letter to farm 

 organizations asking for comments. After going 

 through these we saw there was a diverse 

 opinion on all of these policy issues, but are 

 hopeful we can come up with a f>olicy. 



We sent questionnaires to various farm organi- 

 zations we thought would be interested — 

 Farmers Union, Farm Bureau, the Montana 

 Association of Churches, the Montana Catholic 

 Conference, the Montana Stockgrowers, and 

 Montana Beef Growers, and Montana Grain 

 Growers. Some of our questions addressed 

 target prices to support farm income, export 

 subsidies for American agricultural products, 

 non-recourse loans to support agricultural 

 prices, limits on goverrunent payments to 

 individual farmers, supply control programs 

 such as CRP, set-aside acreages, dairy buyouts, 

 bushel allotments, trade restrictions, limiting 

 farm program costs to taxpayers and consum- 

 ers, environmental impact on agricultural 

 practices, subsidize credit for agriculture, food 

 aid for developing countries, PL480, emergency 

 feed programs for livestock, decoupliiig, direct 

 income support for farmers rather than com- 

 modity price supports, and required conserva- 

 tion plans for each farm in order to participate 

 in the federal agriculture program. 



We realize there were many more questions 

 that we could have asked. We've had a lot of 

 discussion on what is our most critical situ- 

 ation — soil conservation. This weed situation is 

 a bad one, and we know that CRP is not going 

 to help it, but we're going to have to learn to 

 conquer it. 



31 



Montana Ctiaptsr, SoD and Wattr Contervattoo Society 



Society for Range Management 

 Public Affairs Committee 



The Society believes the following 1985 Farm 

 Bill items should be continued: 



1. Retain the major conservation provisions of 

 the 1985 Food Security Act, including 

 sodbustcr, swampbuster, conservation compli- 

 ance, and the Conservation Reserve Program. 



2. Continue to reduce agricultural subsidies, 

 particularly those that contribute to the produc- 

 tion of commodities at the expense of resource 

 conservation. 



New actions and recommendations for the 1990 



Farm Bill: 



Conservation Reserve Program 



• Additional incentives are needed to promote 

 the planting of trees on CRP acres. Cost-share 

 rates for planting trees should be increased to 

 75 or 80 p)ercent. 



• The CRP signup period should be extended 

 beyond 1990 to a date when the 45 million acre 

 goal is reached. 



• CRP contracts containing tree plantings and 

 contracts on lands vsith the most severe erosion 

 hazards should be extended to 15 years. 



• The CRP eligibility criteria should be changed 

 to delete the 2T with gullies and 3T erosion rate 

 criteria. In its place a criteria based on an 

 Erosion Index should be added. 



• Remove disincentives and provide incentives 

 to encourage CRP participants to maintain the 

 established conservation cover on the land 

 follovsing the expiration of the contract. This 

 could be accomplished by allowing crop bases 

 to be maintained. 



• Amend the CRP eligibility criteria to auto- 

 matically qualify fields considered to be HEL 

 (highly erodible land based on the definition 

 used for sodbuster and conservation compli- 

 ance) except fields which have been sodbusted 

 since December 1985. 



Highly Erodible Land 



• Adequate federal resources must be provided 

 to implement the conservation provisions of the 

 1985 Food Security Act. The initial application 

 of the conservation compliance plans and the 

 followup needed to assure their continued 

 maintenance will place a heavy workload on 

 SCS field personnel. 



August ZB, 1888 



