Nation needs more acreage in production, not more CRP

By Clyde Krebs, Jeff Zueger, Bob Zelenka and Ron Mitzel

Published in The Forum (Fargo, ND) - 08/18/2008

If you don’t like dependence on foreign oil, think of being dependent on foreign food. That’s where we’ll end up if we continue to idle more and more acres of U.S. cropland.

On July 31 The Forum editorialized that the Conservation Reserve Program should be expanded. We strongly disagree. Worldwide demand for grains has increased due to population growth, biofuels and dietary changes. Expanding the CRP program restrains American farmers and agribusinesses from satisfying that demand. Expansion would take more land out of crop production at a time when this country needs every bushel it can produce for food, feed and fuel.

The Forum supports corn ethanol. Where are the billions of bushels coming from for that industry if we take more acres out of production? The welfare of the foxes and jackrabbits that live in CRP should not trump food, feed and fuel uses both here at home and for our export markets.

Taxpayers are already paying more for fuel and food. They shouldn’t have to pay even more, or add to the $485 billion federal deficit to put more land in CRP. Production from that land can add economic benefit from a local to a national level and relieve some of the upward pressure on prices. As a nation we have an international trade deficit. Grain exports reduce that deficit. Placing some of this land back into production, not idling even more acres, is the right thing to do.

Businesses have already suffered adverse consequences from CRP. Acres in CRP require no seed or fertilizer or labor. They produce no grain for grain elevators to handle and railroads to ship. Railroad lines in areas with much CRP have been abandoned, further disadvantaging those local communities.

The Forum touts increased economic activity due to hunting on CRP land. Research done by Dean Bangsund of the North Dakota State University Department of Agribusiness and Applied Economics in 2002 showed “recreational (hunting) revenues, on the average, offset agricultural loss by 26 percent in the study areas.” (16 North Dakota counties) For every $4 lost we got back $1. Do we really want more of that? With commodity prices where they are today the loss would be even greater.

When the CRP program first started in 1987 we had surpluses of commodities. Converting grain to fuel wasn’t even thought of in any big way. Now the situation has reversed. Market prices tell us the supply of commodities is tight. Conversion of corn to ethanol will use almost one-fourth of the nation’s corn crop this year. Acres once planted to wheat or other crops are now corn, putting pressure on those commodities also.

We cannot afford to put more acreage into CRP. In fact, the North Dakota Grain Dealers Association, the North Dakota Agricultural Association and the North Dakota Ethanol Producers Association joined about 130 other groups and companies in asking Ag Secretary Ed Schafer to allow penalty-free release of some nonenvironmentally sensitive CRP acres to go back into production to provide for our nation’s needs.

CRP restricts our production factory. We need more production, not less.

Krebs is president of North Dakota Grain Dealers Association; Zueger, secretary of North Dakota Ethanol Producers Association; Zelenka, executive director of Minnesota Grain and Feed Association; and Mitzel, president of South Dakota Grain and Feed Association.