On Monday, April 16, a group of 15 national conservation, agriculture, wildlife, and renewable energy organizations sent a letter to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees in support of reattaching conservation compliance requirements to federal crop insurance subsidies.

In the letter, the 15 organizations urged Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Pat Roberts (R-KS), Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Representatives Frank Lucas (R-OK) and Collin Peterson (D-MN), Chair and Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee, “to renew our conservation compact with farmers by linking conservation compliance to all income support programs, including premium subsidies for crop and revenue insurance.”

The letter was delivered roughly two weeks after former U.S. Secretaries of Agriculture Dan Glickman (1995-2001) and Ann Veneman (2001-2005) delivered a similar letter urging the House and Senate Agriculture Committees to reattach basic conservation compliance requirements to federally subsidized crop insurance in the next farm bill.

Visit the NSAC website to learn more about the effort to reattach highly erodible land and wetland conservation compliance requirements to federal crop insurance subsidies in the 2012 Farm Bill.  Many of the organizations that signed on to Monday’s letter were recently involved in a briefing for Senate legislative aides on the issue.  You can also download the NSAC fact sheet on conservation compliance here.

Also, earlier this week, representatives of national sustainable agriculture, conservation, and wildlife organizations visited with Chairman Lucas about the issue, making the point that a new farm bill without conservation compliance for all farm safety net programs and without sodsaver protections for native grasslands would be the least green farm bill in a generation.   The Chairman noted his work to help steer the conservation title of the 2002 Farm Bill was one of the top highlights of his legislative career.  A constructive discussion on renewing the conservation compact followed.