The Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, P.L. 110-246, was passed on June 18th 2008, over the veto of President George W. Bush. Despite protracted debate, the FCEA represents an evolutionary change in farm legislation relative to previous so called Farm Bills. The FCEA consists of fifteen titles: (1) commodity programs, (2) conservation, (3) trade, (4) nutrition, (5) credit, (6) rural development, (7) research and related matters, (8) forestry, (9) energy, (10) horticulture and organic agriculture, (11) livestock, (12) crop insurance and disaster assistance, (13) commodity futures, (14) miscellaneous programs, and (15) trade and tax provisions. This overview document will examine the programs under Title II: Conservation of the 2008 Farm Bill, representing some 11% of anticipated expenditures.
Congress established the Farmland Protection Program (FPP) in the 1996 Farm Bill to limit nonagricultural uses of certain agricultural lands. The program was renamed the Farm and Ranch Land Protection Program (FRPP) for the 2002 Farm Bill, and changed back to the FPP in 2008. The objective of the Farmland Protection Program is to help farmers and ranchers keep their working agricultural land in agriculture. Producers voluntarily sell conservation easements for their land in exchange for rental payments. Purchasing organizations for the conservation easements include the USDA itself, state and governmental organizations.
There are fifteen titles in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (known as the 2008 Farm Bill). Our focus is the conservation title, Title II, which has seven main conservation programs: the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the Farmland Protection Program (FPP), and the Grassland Reserve Program (GRP). All of these programs are continuations of programs from the 2002 Farm Bill or earlier.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), enacted in 1985, provides payments to farmers to take highly erodible or environmentally sensitive cropland out of production for ten years or more to conserve soil and water resources. It is the federal government's largest private land retirement program. The program is administered by the Farm Service Agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), with technical assistance provided by USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. CRP has several subprograms, the best-known of which is the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Congress reauthorized and amended the CRP through FY2007 in the 2002 farm bill and increased the CRP enrollment cap from 36.4 million acres to 39.2 million acres. Congress also added wildlife resources as a CRP objective and allowed participants to extend certain contracts up to 15 years. Along with a "general sign-up" in 2004 for landowners to submit bids to enroll acreage, USDA also announced two CRP initiatives: one to enroll 250,000 acres of bobwhite quail habitat and a second to enroll 250,000 acres of non-floodplain wetlands. Landowners may apply to enroll in these initiatives any time through December 31, 2007, or until the enrollment caps are reached. Between 2007 and 2010, 28 million acres under CRP contracts will expire, with 16 million acres in 2007 alone. In June 2006, USDA announced that contracts for approximately 13 million acres were renewed. An additional 1 million acres were also added under the latest general sign-up. Reenrollments for contracts expiring 2008-2010 were announced in late summer 2006.
