The 2018 House Farm Bill: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for Wildlife

Last month, the House of Representatives Committee on Agriculture passed the controversial Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 (H.R. 2), otherwise known as the Farm Bill. Renewed approximately every five years, the Farm Bill provides essential support and services to people and communities nationwide — and is critical to conserving wildlife on private lands. Unfortunately, the House version falls short of these goals, and even includes damaging provisions that undermine the Endangered Species Act and imperiled species conservation and planning on national forests.

At more than 640 pages, the House’s Farm Bill has got it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Defenders of Wildlife looks forward to working with both the House and Senate to craft a final Farm Bill that works for both people and wildlife.

The Good

Defenders has developed recommendations for strengthening Farm Bill conservation programs to support more efficient, effective, and long-term conservation of wildlife and their habitat. We are pleased to see that, despite its many flaws, the House bill adopted a handful of these prescriptions. Most notably, the House version elevates Species of Greatest Conservation Need (SGCN) identified in State Wildlife Action Plans as a priority for conservation in the Healthy Forests Reserve Program. Prioritizing federal- and state-designated species in Farm Bill programs helps target resources to the most sensitive species first. We encourage legislators to extend this treatment of SGCN to other Farm Bill programs and initiatives.

The House bill also includes a new requirement that projects funded under the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) quantify environmental outcomes for natural resources, including wildlife. Measuring wildlife outcomes of conservation programs is one of Defenders’ highest priority recommendations for the 2018 Farm Bill.

Defenders is pleased that the bill retains the Conservation Innovation Grant (CIG) program, which has contributed to the research and evaluation of non-lethal predator deterrence and wildlife coexistence practices that support carnivore restoration and reduce conflicts across the country.

Through the assistance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Conservation Resources Service (NRCS), Brad Steverson uses rotational conservation grazing for his 80 Black Angus Cattle on his 300-acre cattle ranch in Henry County, KY.

Although the House bill eliminates the Energy Title, some of its beneficial programs are moved to the Rural Infrastructure and Economic Development Title. These include the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which incentivizes the production of biomass for advanced and cellulosic biofuels, helping to reduce the effects of fossil fuel production and use.

The Bad

The House’s Farm Bill increases the amount of cropland retired for wildlife conservation, soil retention, and watershed health under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) by five million acres over five years. However, landowners would receive a lower rate of payment for setting aside their most environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production. That would likely mean a reduction in new enrollments and dampened demand for renewing lands under the program, potentially losing the environmental benefits of currently enrolled lands.

Gadwall are distributed throughout the southern two-thirds of the United States in winter, with the greatest concentrations found in the Central and Mississippi flyways. They are found throughout much of the intermountain west of North America, and most of Mexico, in reservoirs, farm ponds and coastal fresh and brackish marshes.

The bill also fails to follow Defenders’ recommendation to increase the minimum amount of funding allocated to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) for wildlife-beneficial practices. Increasing the minimum funding reserved for wildlife ensures that at least some EQIP dollars support wildlife needs, diverting them away from less environmentally beneficial practices that are often undertaken by larger industrial operations.

The bill would increase funding for EQIP, RCPP, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program — important programs for wildlife conservation — but at the expense of other Farm Bill programs.

The bill misses an opportunity to expand protections for our nation’s disappearing grasslands. Defenders and many other organizations recommended that the next Farm Bill extend the “Sodsaver” provision nationwide, an important regulation that prohibits those who plow under native prairie from receiving federal crop insurance coverage and crop subsidies. The House’s version does not.

Mary Pfaffko speaks on Capitol Hill at Farm Bill briefing to emphasize benefits and impacts to wildlife of Farm Bill conservation programs.

The Ugly

The House bill includes a number of objectionable — indeed, legislatively fatal — anti-wildlife provisions that are unrelated and unnecessary to administration of Farm Bill programs and initiatives. One provision would weaken or eliminate key Endangered Species Act protections by no longer requiring federal wildlife officials to consider the effect of pesticides on threatened and endangered species, such as the California condor, orca, pollinators, salmon and steelhead species, and other fish, wildlife and plants affected by pesticide application and runoff. Other provisions would further weaken species protections and critical safeguards for national forests. These unrelated provisions have no business being part of the Farm Bill.

This is an aerial view of rice harvesting in Fort Bend County, TX.

The bill also cuts nearly $800 million over 10 years from the Conservation Title, which funds nearly all conservation programs in the Farm Bill. Congress needs to restore this funding so that the Farm Bill can continue to support landowners working to achieve conservation goals.

Finally, the legislation eliminates the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the nation’s largest voluntary working lands conservation program by acreage. It moves some of its core components into EQIP, although, in doing so, the bill narrows the program’s application, and eliminates certain requirements that would render it less beneficial to wildlife, watersheds, and other conservation values.

Next Steps

The House of Representatives is preparing to debate their Farm Bill later this month, while the Senate is expected to introduce their version of the Farm Bill in the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry in the coming weeks. These two chambers will offer very different versions of the Farm Bill and reconciling them this year may be impossible. Regardless, it’s most important that Congress take the time to get it right and enact a Farm Bill that works for both people and wildlife.

Download Defenders priority and comprehensive list of recommendations for the 2018 Farm Bill.