Another effect of our promotion of corn based ethanol is the destruction of wildlife habitat, including habitat for ducks and pheasants that are important to South Dakota hunting and tourism.
As this article notes, the subsidization of ethanol has contributed to a spike in corn prices and gives an incentive to farmers to convert land from conservation to production.
Now, because of federal mandates to turn large amounts of corn into ethanol-based fuel, food prices are beginning to jump. Cropland is suddenly in heavy demand, a situation that is straining old alliances, inspiring new ones and putting pressure on the Agriculture Department, which is being lobbied by all sides without managing to satisfy any of them.
Born nearly 25 years ago in an era of abundance, the Conservation Reserve Program is having a rough transition to the age of shortage. Its 35 million acres - about 8 percent of the cropland in the country - are the big prize in this fight. (snip)
That is just the beginning, warns Ducks Unlimited, an organization with more than half a million members in the United States. They are concerned about the 750,000 acres of grassland that were removed from the program last year in the so-called duck factory in the upper Midwest.
Ducks Unlimited chimes in:
The US Fish and Wildlife Services credits CRP with producing more than 2 million ducks a year. This steady stream of lost habitat will mean significantly lower production of ducks that migrate through or winter in all of the contiguous 48 states and provide and an important part of the hunters’ bags in those states.
DU’s director of conservation programs in the Prairie Pothole Region [mainly North And South Dakota] says conservation-minded people are concerned the country’s new energy policy will wipe out billions of federal dollars invested in natural resources. “Conservation is in for a long swim against a strong current when trying to fight the tide of land rolling out of CRP,” Jim Ringelman said.
DU also notes the efforts our local delegation:
Fifty conservation groups, led by Ducks Unlimited, sent a letter to the Congressional leaders of the Farm Bill last week to push for a strong Sodsaver provision in the final bill, which is in conference right now. In addition, Senators John Thune and Tim Johnson and Representative Stephanie-Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota all sent similar letters, reminding their colleagues to protect this vital national resource.
Apparently a Farm Bill agreement was finally made yesterday (months late). The amount of money going to ethanol is down and the money to nutrition is up. I have yet to find any information about how CRP or the Sodsaver program fared. We'll keep you posted.
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