04/30/07 Consolidating under EQIP

They're called conservation and credit titles. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns sent drafts of USDA's farm bill proposals to Capitol Hill last week. The proposed conservation portion will include a consolidated and easier to understand EQIP, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. JOHANNS "7.8 billion dollars in additional funding and a restructuring of our programs to make them easier to access and easier to administer. We would consolidate several existing programs into a newly designed and expanded Environmental Quality Incentives Program, we call it EQIP, and increase funding for that my 4.25 billion dollars. EQIP is very popular in Idaho with over two thousand contracts and 14 million in annual cost share dollars. But will consolidation work; is it the way to go? JOHANNS "I think you can deliver all of this with a consolidated approach and still identify that your mission is going to be to continue to target all of the areas that were the reasons for these programs to get passed." Johanns told farm broadcasters that USDA does not want to lose what he calls the 'personal touch' but he does want to lose some of the red tape facing landowners who are doing conservation work. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott