Conservation Reserve Program

Alternatives Are Available for Managing Environmentally Sensitive Cropland Gao ID: RCED-95-42 February 21, 1995

If not properly managed, agricultural production on the nation's 382 million acres of cropland can harm water and air quality, soil productivity, and wildlife habitat. Congress created the Conservation Reserve Program in 1985 to temporarily remove highly erodible surplus cropland from production. The Agriculture Department has agreed to pay farmers nearly $20 billion to take more than 36 million acres out of production for 10 years. These contracts begin to expire in 1995, with the contracts for most of the acres--22 million--expiring in 1996 and 1997. This report estimates the amount and the locations of land covered by the program and other environmentally sensitive cropland that should be removed from production for environmental reasons and discusses alternatives for managing this land. GAO also presents information on Conservation Reserve Program land and other environmentally sensitive cropland that can remain in production.

GAO found that: (1) it could not precisely identify the amount of CRP and other environmentally sensitive cropland that should be kept out of production; (2) there are about 36.4 million acres of land enrolled in CRP, but by using buffer zones and other conservation practices, this amount could be reduced substantially; (3) reducing the amount of land enrolled in CRP would reduce federal costs; (4) allowing farmers to earn revenue from environmentally compatible uses of CRP land would also reduce federal costs; (5) CRP benefits would last longer if the program used easements to restrict land use for longer periods than the 10-year contracts CRP presently uses; (6) except for buffer zones, most CRP and other environmentally sensitive cropland can be in production without serious environmental consequences if farmers practice appropriate conservation measures; and (7) environmental benefits could also be increased through incentive payments to farmers to encourage them to adopt conservation practices.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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