*Action Alert*
You already know that if the House gets its way programs that are building a healthier, more just, and environmentally sustainable food and farming system will get thrown under the bus.
But guess what? The Obama Administration appears ready to propose even deeper cuts to conservation programs than the Republican House!
Someone has to be the voice of reason here.
Don’t let the Administration gut innovative programs that reward farmers for environmental stewardship and protect fragile wetlands while leaving unscathed the $5 billion dollar a year that is spent on production subsidies in the form of direct payments – payments that go to farmers and landowners without regard to need or even crop price levels.
Tell U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Vilsack to stand up for the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program. If cuts are to be made then everything has to be on the table –a budget package that singles out conservation is shortsighted and unfair.
Your emails make a difference!
Just reposted this on the RAFI page. Thanks!
Thank you!
Secretary Vilsack,
please help preserve funding for conservation stewardship and wetlands reserve programs.
Help us preserve the backbone of our nations clean food sources.
Thank you.
If forward looking and thinking programs like these are to be threatened by our nation’s current and evolving fiscal realities, then many other programs in all areas of our government need to be on the table as well. Our long-term health and well-being as individuals and a collective society are being determined by a mass-produced and chemical-laden food supply which is undoubtedly impacting our health care costs.
The ethanol mandate and tariff combined with commodity subsidies are driving up commodity, input, and land prices, with the environmental consequences of moving erosion-prone land back into production and eliminating perennial crops and other plants that take up spring rains. To concurrently eliminate or reduce the conservation programs that protect against soil erosion and flooding would further increase the long term damage. We need to reduce the pressure on land by eliminating some of the direct and indirect commodity subsidies, not the conservation protections.