Pick Your Green: Cash or Grass

A man's got to eat, and a farmer's got to pay the bills. But look around at the acres being taken out of CRP (Conservation Reserve Program) and put into production, and you can't help wondering if the economy is pushing farmers to make short-term profits at the expense of long-term sustainability.

I know, my wife's the gardener, and my knowledge of farming is mostly literary (Grapes of Wrath, anyone?). But Sue Kirchhoff and Jeff Martin give a good summary in today's Sioux Falls paper of the trade-offs to be found in plowing up our grasslands to fuel the grain and ethanol boom:

Leaving at least some land idle amid the increasingly industrialized business of farming is essential for a variety of reasons. It provides a cleansing buffer for water that runs off chemically treated fields. Protection of fragile wetlands cuts soil erosion while providing wildlife habitat that, in South Dakota, is the basis of a multimillion-dollar hunting and tourism industry. Native grasslands sustain biological diversity that can't be replicated, and plowing untouched prairie releases carbon dioxide into the air, contributing to climate change.

Conservationists warn that the commodity and ethanol frenzy could undo years of hard work and undercut the investment of taxpayer money that has bankrolled federal land- and water-protection programs [Sue Kirchhoff and Jeff Martin, "Could High Grain Prices Devastate Prairie?" that Sioux Falls paper, 2008.03.31].

There is some hope. Even Republican Senator John Thune is working deny subsidies to farmers who cultivate virgin soil. And not all farmers are going for the quick cash:

Near De Smet, [Bill] Wilkinson has decided to go against the current. While others convert prairie to crops, he's put about 400 acres into a special preservation reserve.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offers payments equal to about 35 percent of the land's value to farmers who agree to permanently idle their acreage. The goal is to set aside about 24,000 acres of untouched land in two South Dakota counties.Wilkinson, standing in a field of bluestem grass more than 4 feet high, says, "I'm one of those who intend to leave the ground better than when we got it" [Kirchhoff & Martin].

It's awfully hard for any businessperson, in ag or any other field, to say no to a chance to make good money fast. But that's why we need programs like CRP: to mitigate the damage that the lure of quick profits can do to our long-term national welfare.

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ag post-script: The USDA Economic Research Service feed in the left sidebar here points me to a new USDA study: "Dietary Assessment of Major Trends in U.S. Food Consumption, 1970-2005." Among the findings:

1. Americans have more grain than ever to eat. Unfortunately, only 11% of the grain they eat is good whole grain; the remainder is less nutritious refined grain.
2. Federal dietary guidelines say we should limit our consumption of added sugars and sweeteners to 8 teaspoons a day. In 2005, we ate 30 teaspoons of such additives. One major source: the corn syrup food corporations put in everything from granola bars to hot dogs (ever put sugar on your hot dog?).

So how much of these record grain harvest are going to good use?