Political Quotes

“last month, the Secretary of Agriculture announced the new rules and regulations on the Conservation Reserve Program in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We find that we are starting to take a program that has been claimed as one of the great success programs, as far as soil conservation, watershed management, wildlife habitat, in our respective States. There is no doubt about it, that we have land that was taken out of production that was marginal land, should never have been in row crop or crop production, should have been grass all those years, and we have noticed an increase, a notable increase in upland bird populations, also in white tail deer and other wildlife that depend on a habitat that the CRP would afford. There has been a rule change, however. This was brought to our attention by our good friends and neighbors who are living and working on the grain farms of Montana, and especially in eastern Montana. The announcement by U.S. Department of Agriculture to start a sign up for an extension, or increased acreage received into the program going up to 220 million acres across this country. Now, it would look like the acreage is capped around 36.4 million acres, but there have been new rules made on about half of American cropland making it now eligible for CRP. It was brought up in this new announcement and the timing is flawed. The new rules give the worst lands the lowest rate, the best lands the highest rate.”