For Immediate Release
August 4, 2004
Conservation Initiatives Fact Sheet
Today's Presidential Action
- Today, President Bush visited the Katzenmeyer Farm in Le Sueur,
Minnesota, to highlight his continued commitment to improving the
environment and the strong conservation ethic of America's farmers
and sportsmen - by announcing three important new conservation
initiatives that will help protect wildlife, water, and precious
land resources.
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These new conservation efforts will further support the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's (USDA) largest conservation program on
private lands, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). CRP is a
successful, 20-year old, voluntary program that works with farmers
and sportsmen to conserve environmentally sensitive land and
provide habitat for waterfowl and birds.
Background on Today's Presidential Action
Originally authorized under the 1985 Farm Bill, CRP is a voluntary
program sponsored by USDA that provides incentives to landowners to
remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and
instead establish protective vegetative cover of grass, trees, or
wildlife habitat. Since its inception in 1986, this program has helped
reduce soil erosion by more than 40 percent and restored 1.8 million
acres of critical wetlands. Since President Bush signed the historic
2002 Farm Bill, CRP has increased enrollment by 2.6 million acres,
conserving a total of 34.8 million acres of environmentally sensitive
land for wildlife habitat, riparian buffers, and soil protection. The
2002 Farm Bill provides more than $40 billion over a decade to restore
millions of acres of wetlands, protect habitats, conserve water, and
improve streams and rivers near working farms and ranches. Today,
President Bush announced three new efforts to strengthen conservation
under CRP:
- Strengthening the Environment by Expanding and Extending the Conservation Reserve Program:
- Early Re-Enrollment and Extensions of CRP Contracts to Improve
Environmental Benefits. The President announced that USDA will
offer early re-enrollment and contract extensions in order to
improve the environmental benefits of the existing CRP
acreage. The President directed the Secretary of Agriculture
to initiate a plan for maintaining and expanding the benefits
of the Conservation Reserve Program in the future, working
closely with farmers, sportsmen, wildlife groups, conservation
leaders, communities, and other interested individuals.
- At present, 16 million acres under CRP contract are scheduled
to expire in 2007. Another 6 million acres would follow in
2008, 4 million in 2009, and 2 million in 2010. Today's action
by the President will make sure these farmlands stay
protected. A request for public comment on various aspects of
CRP will be published in the Federal Register in early August
2004. This action underscores the Bush Administration's
commitment to full enrollment of CRP up to 39.2 million acres
and to strong conservation on working farms.
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