Iowa Farm Bureau delegates defied the organization’s leadership yesterday, passing a resolution without language requiring compliance with conservation standards as a condition for receiving federal crop insurance.
Congress is supposed to pass a new farm bill next year, and the Iowa Farm Bureau expects big changes:
If federal direct payments to farmers are eliminated by congress, as is widely expected, federal agriculture and environmental regulators would be left without a compliance requirement if conservation compliance were not added to insurance eligibility. Such compliance was linked to farm insurance for decades but removed in 1996.
In 1996, Congress made conservation compliance a requirement for farmers receiving direct payments from the U.S. government. At the Iowa Farm Bureau’s policy conference on Tuesday, delegates approved by voice vote a resolution to switch back to the old model. Dan Piller reported for the Des Moines Register,
Conservation groups had expressed alarm that the elimination of direct payments would remove a major carrot for compliance on conservation measures such as no-till practices, buffer zones, berms and other measures.
The delegates put some extra teeth into the resolution with the words: “Habitual offenders should not be eligible to purchase subsidized crop insurance.” […]
[Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig] Lang said the resolutions committee suggested the conservation compliance working “as a way to prove to taxpayers that farmers will comply with conservation.”
He added: “There was concern that without direct payments that there would be no incentive for farmers to comply. We wanted to make sure that everybody understood that we would.”
That was from the story in the Des Moines Register’s Wednesday edition. But later the same day, Piller reported a change in course:
The Iowa Farm Bureau’s policy conference reversed itself Wednesday morning. After lengthy debate and a multitude of motions, the group approved a resolution stating that compliance with conservation programs not be a condition for purchasing federally subsidized insurance programs.
The new resolution reads “the Iowa Farm Bureau supports conservation compliance; however, eligibility for federal crop insurance should not be subject to farm program conservation requirements.” […]
The delegates had approved the linkage resolution by voice vote on Tuesday, but when the matter was brought Wednesday morning for the final consideration that normally is routine, a tallied vote went 57-36 in favor of removing the compliance requirement.
A clearly frustrated Iowa Farm Bureau president Craig Lang, who had lobbied in favor of the linkage of insurance and conservation compliance, said “it looks like there was some caucusing in the hotel last night.”
Looks like some people want the government’s help without having to follow the government’s rules. Piller quoted some of the voting Farm Bureau members:
Benton County delegate David Wrage said “my county convention is in favor of compliance, they just don’t want the government coming in and telling us what to do.” […]
Delegate Corwin Fee of Marion County said “this is about public relations. I’m all for PR, but this is my livelihood. It’s impossible to farm without crop insurance.”
My friends who own businesses don’t receive a 60 percent government subsidy on their insurance. If farmers don’t want want the federal government “coming in and telling us what to do,” let them pay the full cost of their own crop insurance.