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It's #ThrowbackThursday! Today: New Deal ag conservation was ancillary to ag production/income support and that's still the case. This is a problem b/c
- When the going gets good, it's fencerow to fencerow!
- As a result conservation programs are ineffective at conservation! 1/
- When the going gets good, it's fencerow to fencerow!
- As a result conservation programs are ineffective at conservation! 1/
The 1936 Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act “enabled farmers to receive soil conservation payments for reducing "soil depleting" crops, which were also the crops that were in surplus (Batie 1985)." This is similar to today's Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) btw 2/
These land retirement programs prop up crop prices (& farm incomes) by reducing supply. As such USDA has historically "spread conservation program benefits widely. Such a distribution of funds was also justifiable b/c farm income support was the chief goal (Batie 1985)" 3/
"The federal government [...] had a strong inclination to
treat soil erosion primarily as an unfortunate consequence of the malfunctioning farm economy, rather than as a distinctly environmental concern (Rasmussen 1999)". As I said, ancillary. 4/
!["The federal government [...] had a strong inclination totreat soil erosion primarily as an unfortunate consequence of the malfunctioning farm economy, rather than as a distinctly environmental concern (Rasmussen 1999)". As I said, ancillary. 4/](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Et-ipqpXMAQRkIN.jpg "\"The federal government [...] had a strong inclination totreat soil erosion primarily as an unfortunate consequence of the malfunctioning farm economy, rather than as a distinctly environmental concern (Rasmussen 1999)\". As I said, ancillary. 4/")
treat soil erosion primarily as an unfortunate consequence of the malfunctioning farm economy, rather than as a distinctly environmental concern (Rasmussen 1999)". As I said, ancillary. 4/
The supplementary nature of conservation programs became apparent as US agriculture boomed during and after WWII: programs to take fragile land out of production were suspended (Lichtenberg 2014, Rasmussen 1999), to be reintroduced in 1956 to address surplus prod'n again 5/
And of course a similar pattern emerged after the 2008 corn ethanol mandate helped increase crop prices and CRP acreage was reduced (w/limited reenrollment only allowed via the REX process). When push comes to shove, it's ALWAYS less conservation & more commodity production 6/
Many of the long term problems of US ag can be traced to the historical yo-yos of conservation policies primarily in service of commodity production (& income support) under different guises. This needs to be substantively addressed particularly in light of climate change. 7/7
