As the next Farm Bill is developed, a core issue will be inclusion of conservation compliance language, according to the Wildlife Management institute. First established in the 1980's, conservation compliance is the application of a set of minimum conservation practices that farmers must implement on sensitive lands in order to participate in some federal farm subsidy programs.

Between 1985 and 1996, the federal crop insurance program required conservation compliance before providing funds to farmers. However, in the 1996 Farm Bill it was dropped as a requirement from the crop insurance program to attract more producers to participate. Conservation compliance was then tied to the direct payment subsidies to farmers that were initiated in the 1996 Farm Bill.

During this Farm Bill debate, direct payments to producers are almost certain to be eliminated in an effort to help rein in the federal deficit. If this happens, crop insurance will very likely become the centerpiece of the farm safety net for the immediate future. With this shift, a fierce debate is likely to occur over the reattachment of insurance payments to conservation compliance.

Many major crop commodity groups have stated their opposition to reattaching conservation compliance to federal crop insurance stating that the additional requirements will result in lower participation in the insurance program. On the other hand, those in the conservation community point out that this drop in participation is unlikely to be much of an issue as over 80 percent of producers are currently enrolled in the federal crop insurance program. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that subsidizing crop insurance could cost taxpayers as much as $90 billion over the next ten years. ?With such a large investment in these subsidies, conservation groups argue that taxpayers should receive the environmental benefits associated with requiring conservation compliance.

There is not much argument that conservation compliance has been an important conservation tool since its inception. It is estimated that conservation compliance reduces soil erosion by nearly 300 million tons each year and has saved thousands of acres of ecologically important wetlands from conversion to other uses. The debate over whether and how it will be included in federal farm subsidies will unfold in coming months as members of Congress release draft Farm Bill legislation. (pmr)