05/24/07 Draft conservation title halts CSP enrollment

Farm and Ranch May 24, 2007 Subcommittees in the U.S. House have begun to mark up discussion drafts for sections of the 2007 Farm Bill. The conservation title draft would cut off new sign ups for the Conservation Security Program though payments and modifications under existing contracts would be made until they expire. A new CSP program would go into effect for fiscal years 2012 through 2017. New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand praised efforts by House Ag Chair Collin Peterson to simply the CSP and enhance its benefits but not by freezing the program until 2012. Gillibrand: "CSP is kind of a proactive conservation-stewardship program that is needed to reward the conservation practices already in place and to provide incentives for further improvement. Obviously the only problem with this is it is not funded so my amendment is to use reserve funds to be made available for the CSP program." The subcommittee chair asked Gillibrand to withdraw her amendment urging caution in relying on reserve funds. Use of those funds requires spending reduction offsets. The new Conservation Security Program being proposed in the House would replace the tier-based payment structure with a steward ship based payment that allows producers to graduate to higher levels of more intensive conservation. The subcommittee's conservation title draft extends the Conservation Reserve Program until 2012. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.