Is Anyone Paying Attention? We’ve Lost 9.7 Million Acres of CRP Land in Five Years

Posted on March 14, 2013 by admin

By K. McDonald on March 7th, 2013     SWCS Conservation NewsBriefs

The amount of land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), at 27.1 million acres, is down by 26 percent, or 9.7 million acres in the past five years, to a 25 year low. During this same time period, corn acreage has increased by 13 million acres. Farmers are once again planting crops on marginal lands “fencerow to fencerow” to cash in on today’s high commodity prices. CRP payments haven’t risen to compete with crop returns, and the program itself is being whittled away by Congress.

 

The Conservation Reserve Program exists to provide land owners with some financial incentive to idle their land, which in turn benefits the environment while providing commodity price support by reducing surplus production. But now, ethanol policy makes that curb of surplus production unnecessary. The original CRP legislation, the Food Security Act of 1985, set a goal of enrolling over 40 million acres into the program by 1990 but that has never been reached and is now falling sharply. The laws regulating the program have been tweaked many times since begun in 1985, being tugged and pulled by various special interests. Prior to the CRP, we had “set aside acres” in the 1970′s and “soil bank” acres in the 1960′s. Continue reading →

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States Benefit from Economic Impact of Hunting

Posted on March 6, 2013 by admin

 March 4, 2013

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has released a major new report documenting the importance of hunting activities to the U.S. economy. NSSF is the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry.

Produced by Southwick Associates, the report, Hunting in America: An Economic Force for Conservation, provides detailed information on 40-plus categories of U.S. hunting-related expenditures, which grew 55 percent, as well as state-by-state statistics for number of hunters, retail sales, taxes and jobs. The report notes an overall nine percent increase in hunting participation between 2006 and 2011. The money hunters spent in 2011 resulted in $87 billion being added to the nation’s economy and supported more than 680,000 jobs nationally.

“The major growth in spending by hunters is good news for businesses throughout the country, particularly small businesses in rural areas,” said NSSF President and CEO Steve Sanetti.

Beyond their impact on businesses and local economies, sportsmen are the leaders in protecting wildlife and habitats. When you combine license and stamp fees, excise taxes on hunting equipment and membership contributions to conservation organizations, hunters contribute more than $1.6 billion annually to conservation.

“Hunters are without peer when it comes to funding the perpetuation and conservation of wildlife and natural habitats,” said Sanetti.

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Biofuels Converting U.S. Prairielands at Dust Bowl Rates

Posted on March 1, 2013 by admin

By Joe Hitchon

WASHINGTON, Feb 23 2013 (IPS) – The rush for biofuels in the United States has seen farmers converting the United States’ prairie lands to farms at rates comparable with deforestation levels in Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia – rates not seen here since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

A new study finds that, between 2006 and 2011, U.S. farmers converted more than 1.3 million acres of grassland into corn and soybean fields. Driven by high crop prices, biofuel subsidies and a confluence of other factors, states like Iowa and South Dakota have been turning some five percent of prairie into cropland each year, according to the report’s authors, Christopher Wright and Michael Wimberly of South Dakota State University.

The researchers suggest that farmers are growing crops on increasingly marginal land, in part because the federal government offers subsidised crop insurance in case of failure. In Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, for instance, corn and soy are planted in areas that are especially vulnerable to drought. Continue reading →

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States Initiating Research on Moose Declines; Minnesota Halts Hunt

Posted on February 18, 2013 by admin

Outdoor News Bulletin   February, 2013 

Moose are the iconic big game species of the north woods. The largest subspecies is found throughout much of Canada and Alaska, while the lower 48 states have populations of three different subspecies in New England, the Upper Midwest, and Rocky Mountain states. Moose had largely been extirpated through much of their southern range by the late 1800’s, but populations rebounded due to conservation efforts by wildlife managers. Within the last twenty to thirty years, limited hunting programs were established in most states with moose populations. However, in recent years managers have seen declines in moose across most of their range in the lower 48 states causing concern and spurring new research efforts and hunting restrictions. This increased focus should help managers better understand what factors are contributing to the population declines, reports the Wildlife Management Institute. Continue reading →
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Animal welfare groups sue to end Midwest wolf hunt

Posted on February 13, 2013 by admin

 

Posted: Feb 12, 2013 11:50 AM CST Updated: Feb 12, 2013 4:50 PM CST

  By STEVE KARNOWSKI
Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The Humane Society of the United States and other animal welfare groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday to restore federal protections for gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region that were lifted last year.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the District of Columbia against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its parent agency, the U.S. Department of the Interior, said the decision to take wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan off the endangered list threatens the animals’ recovery throughout most of their historic range. At one time, the animals roamed nearly all of North America. Continue reading →

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