Slate takes note of conservation compliance
The other major issue that Congress left unsettled by abandoning the 2012 Farm Bill is crop insurance, now the biggest form of government support to agriculture. Or, as critics ranging from the Environmental Working Group to the American Enterprise Institute argue, the latest government handout scam. As of the passage of the 2008 Farm Bill, taxpayers fund 60 percent of farmers’ insurance premiums through a subsidy to private companies. They also cover a sizable portion of the insurance industry’s costs to run these programs. (In this drought- and heat-ravaged year of 2012, crop insurance payments alone are expected reach $20 billion to $25 billion, up from approximately $1 billion in 2000.)
Unlike crop subsidies, crop insurance has no strings attached. Formerly, to get a subsidy, a landowner had to comply with basic conservation measures—for instance, they weren’t allowed to plant on highly erodible soils or drain low-lying wetlands. By contrast, government-subsidized crop insurance is actually fueling an expansion of commodity cropping on millions of acres formerly considered marginally productive. It doesn’t matter that this depletes resources and destroys habitats; taxpayers will pick up the tab even if farmers fail to harvest or turn a profit from their crops. Conservation requirements benefit growers and the public alike by preventing soil erosion, filtering water, and providing natural habitat. A serious Farm Bill would not give a single penny to crop insurance programs without requiring conservation compliance from its beneficiaries. Ultimately, all subsidy programs should once again be oriented around environmental stewardship.
For more on why conservation compliance should be a priority of both the left and the right, see R Street President Eli Lehrer’s paper CONSERVATION COMPLIANCE: The Obscure Environmental Provision Key to Protecting Taxpayers and Privatizing Crop Insurance.
