Release protected land for farming?
Posted by at Jul 17th, 2008 in Climate Change
Filed under: Food , News , Polit-eco , Climate Change
The fact that food prices around the world are rising is not news. In April, we reported that fewer and fewer farmers are accepting payments from the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to ” take land out of production and use it to restore valuable ecosystems .” Intended as a way to create more habitat, prevent soil erosion, and improve water quality, there are roughly 35 million acres of conservation lands that would be farmland, if not for the CRP’s efforts. Currently, if landowners wish to back out of their contract for no-planting early, they face not only a penalty, but reimbursement for payments already received. Unfortunately, because of the rise in food prices, farmers also stand to make more profit by growing cash crops like wheat and corn. Because of the food crisis, the USDA is considering waiving the costs of backing out of their CRP contracts early in order to free up to 24 million acres of land for farming. That is a whopping 68.57% of the current CRP conservation lands that could be released. The idea? Congress and producer groups claim that this move would increase food production and thus lower prices. Says Lisa Moore , a scientist with the Climate and Air program for the environmental Defense Fund, the impact on the food market would be minimal, but the environmental impact would be “a tragedy.” In fact, the lands in question aren’t exceptionally fertile, which is why the farmers accepted CRP payments instead of attempting to grow crops. The payments were higher than what they could get from the crop yield. Now, with food prices so high, this is no longer true, even though the lands are simply more suited to, and valuable as, “restored wetlands, forests, and grasslands.” Moore lists the following effects that releasing these lands would have on the environment:
Tonnes of soil would be exposed, and could wash or blow away.
Greenhouse gas emissions would be increased. These habitats actually store carbon.
Valuable wildlife habitat would be destroyed.
The likelihood and extent of future flooding might be increased in areas.
Water quality would suffer.
In April, Melissa Schober noted that allegedly, CRP conservation lands prevent 450 million tonnes of soil erosion annually, and that by helping to improve our global warming situation, economic loss from droughts, floods, and other disastrous weather patterns is averted. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments
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Release protected land for farming?
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