This is Part 1 of a two part series examining the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). (Part two is available here.) This week, Western Producer reporter Robert Arnason talks with North Dakota producers who say that wildlife groups have hijacked the mandate of the CRP, which was designed to take marginal land out of production.
Next week, Arnason will look at the issue of “early outs.” U.S. farm groups are lobbying the federal government to let producers break CRP contracts without a financial penalty. The change would allow producers to put idle land back into production as soon as possible.
Read Also
Red lentils priced higher than large greens
Red lentil prices have eclipsed large green lentil prices for the first time since 2014.
ANTLER, N.D. – Peter Artz is sitting awkwardly in his kitchen chair, with his torso facing the dining table and his neck twisted over his left shoulder to face his listener.
The contortion can’t be good for Artz’s back, but the posture adds intensity to his delivery as he rails against the politics of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
Artz has 450 acres in the CRP, a U.S. Department of Agriculture initiative that pays farmers to take cropland out of production.
He plans to leave the program next year, when his 10-year contract expires, mostly because he’s sick of the wildlife groups that, he believes, now control the CRP.
“When you talk to those people (wildlife groups), they totally disregard the fact that we own the land,” Artz said.
“There’s a lot of acres (across North Dakota) coming out because of economics … but I think a lot of it’s going to come out, just because people are sick of the bullshit.”
Artz is certainly not the only producer in Antler, North Dakota, who is frustrated with environmental politics in the state.
Fellow producers, Gabe Thompson and Artz’s cousin Wayne Artz joined him around his kitchen table last week for coffee and an hour of CRP talk.
Most farmers sign up for 10-year CRP contracts, and when the 1997 contracts expired last fall, two million acres came out of the program.
As of August 2007, 36.7 million acres were enrolled in the program, with the USDA paying producers an average rate of $50 per acre to put their land aside.
By this spring that number had dropped to 34.7 million, with North Dakota losing 360,000 acres, the largest exodus of any state in the U.S.
CRP acres in North Dakota remain above three million, behind only Montana, Texas and Kansas. However, state wildlife officials expect that number to drop further as farmers put land back into production to take advantage of record crop prices and high prices for cash rent.
“It’s a pretty easy decision for those folks not to re-enroll,” said John Denvey, senior vice-president of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation in Bismarck, N.D.
“I think what we’re seeing is an economic reality.”
However, according to the producers around Artz’s kitchen table, the decision has moved well past basic economics. It’s also become an issue of emotion and respect.
Artz, who raises 500 cattle in the Antler area, said that after a winter of low snowfall and a dry spring, he and his neighbours realized in early May that they needed to take action or there wouldn’t be enough land for hay and pasture this summer.
They lobbied local politicians and government agencies to declare a drought in the region, which would allow emergency haying and grazing of their CRP land.
Several weeks later, after many producer meetings and phone calls, the USDA opened up a portion of CRP land in North Dakota for grazing, including the Antler region.
The decision applied only to grazing, which meant Antler producers would have to rely on a different USDA initiative to hay their CRP land.
On May 27, the USDA announced plans for a critical feed program that would allow haying or grazing on 24 million acres of CRP land, after the bird-nesting season.
However, in late June the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) filed a lawsuit against the policy on the grounds that the USDA had not assessed the environmental impacts of the program.
The Antler producers said the NWF’s combative reaction to the critical feed program is symbolic of the conflict between landowners and conservationists in North Dakota.
“Their voice is what we’re up against … in trying to get these lands open,” said Thompson, who raises 250 cattle.
He said conservation groups from across the country have joined forces to form a powerful lobby in Washington, D.C. Their influence on public policy means environmentalists have hijacked the mandate of the CRP, which was designed to be an agricultural program to take marginal land out of production.
“The primary use of CRP, in these groups’ minds, is wildlife conservation,” Thompson said.
“It is actually a sub-benefit of what that program was initially designed for.”
Thompson has 160 acres enrolled in the CRP, and his contract commits him to four more years.
“At the end of that … it will be taken out.”
What especially incenses the producers in Antler, who are known as the Antler Outlaws, is that environmentalists are not willing to negotiate or deal with them directly.
The producers say they would like to work with the conservation groups to develop grazing schemes that would benefit farmers and ducks, but the other side is not willing to compromise.
“You go to the table with them, they want you to bring everything you have, they bring nothing, and they want to take half of what you got back home,” said Wayne Artz, who raises 270 cattle.
Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation acknowledges that many producers may be frustrated with his organization, but suggested their anger may be misdirected.
“I’d ask those farmers and ranchers that are mad at us for bringing the suit to at least recognize that the problem here wasn’t us,” said France, a lawyer and lead counsel for the NWF in the lawsuit against the USDA.
“It was an illegal action on the part of the Department of Agriculture. It (the critical feed program) was an action they took without any consultation or forewarning.”
France added it’s unfortunate that NWF had to go to court, but it was their only option, given the circumstances.
“The problem here is with the leadership of the Department of Agriculture, not with the conservation groups who say this is our program, too,” he said. “The only way this works is when both conservationists and farmers win.”
France added that the history of the CRP is one of ranchers, farmers and wildlife groups working together, and he’d like that to continue.
In Antler these days, however, that relationship is looking more like a divorce rather than reconciliation.
“They didn’t even come to the table … and I think it’s built a bitterness bridge. I’m speaking for myself personally, ” said Peter Artz, who is considering keeping hunters off his land this fall.
“I don’t think I’ve ever denied access to my land, but I think I’m going to just to make a point that I do own this land.”
