National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture

Action Alert
March 7, 2008

House and Senate Conferees Moving Toward a Farm Bill Funding Compromise -- Conservation Programs At Risk

Please Call your Senator or Representative Today in Support of $5 Billion in New and Mandatory Funding for Conservation Programs

It’s crunch time! House and Senate Conferees are determining the final funding levels for programs under the 2008 Farm Bill. The Senate version provides $5 billion in new funding for the Conservation Title, but there is enormous pressure to cut back these gains in the final Farm Bill. The Conservation Security Program, the Wetlands and Grasslands Reserve Programs and the Federal Farmland Protection Program are all at risk.

The timeline is short. Your elected officials need to hear from you about the importance of fully funding these programs that conserve and protect farmland, soil, wetlands and water quality. Providing increased and mandatory funding levels are essential to furthering farmland conservation and stewardship.

Please contact your elected officials TODAY and urge them to support $5 billion in new funding for Conservation Title programs, including:

$2 billion in new and mandatory funding for the Conservation Security Program.
$2 billion in new and mandatory funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program.
$1 billion in new and mandatory funding for the Federal Farmland Protection Program, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program and programs that protect water quality.

Calls and faxes are more effective than emails. If you call, ask for the staff aide responsible for agriculture. If you get the aide’s voice mail, leave a short message with the above bullet points along with your name and contact information.

Background & Recent Farm Bill Developments

Both the House and the Senate have passed their versions of the Farm Bill. A Conference Committee is now working to iron out the differences between the two bills. The Compromise bill will be brought back to both houses for passage and then be sent on to the President for his signature. House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders and the Bush administration have been negotiating over the final cost of the bill, how money can be raised to pay for any new spending under the bill and the final outlines of commodity program payment reform.

The Bush Administration has threatened to veto the farm bill but last week said it would accept a bill that spent $10 billion over the budget baseline provided the bill adopted “significant” payment limit reforms and did not use budget gimmicks or tax measures to finance the increase. Both the House and Senate farm bills rely on revenue raised by tightening tax rules to fund spending over baseline. The Bush administration has proposed a set of spending offsets to pay for the increases. With a proposed permanent disaster program costing $5 billion on the wish list of some leaders there is enormous pressure to scale back funding on the Conservation Title.

The current farm bill expires on March 15th and the pace of the negotiations suggests that an extension of one week to one month will be necessary. However, leaders are hoping to come to an agreement over how to allocate spending among the farm program titles as early as the middle of next week. Please call your Senator today to urge him to fight for conservation funding.

For more information on the Farm Bill go to:

NCSA Farm Bill Website: http://www.sustainableagriculture.net/farm_bill.php;

Sustainable Agriculture Coalition: http://www.sustainableagriculturecoalition.org