High Crop Prices Are Driving Land Use Change in the U.S. at an Increasing Environmental Cost

by Ned Stowe (Environmental and Energy Study Institute) The USDA estimates that farmers in the U.S. will plant nine million more acres in corn in 2013 than they did in 2011, an increase of almost 10 percent. Over the same period, the USDA reports that four million acres have been taken out of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a decline of almost 13 percent. These trends do not bode well for water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and other critical environmental concerns. There are far more environmentally sustainable ways to meet growing demand for food, feed and renewable fuels than this. Will the next Farm Bill show the way?

...Where will all of this land come from? According to the same USDA projections, it is not likely to come from farmers switching land over to corn from other crops such as soybeans or wheat. Acreage planted for those crops is projected to increase or hold steady. Rather, much of the land likely will come from converting pastures, using land that has not been farmed recently or previously, and acreage returning to production from expiring CRP contracts.

...The expansion of crop acreage to marginally productive new land and the conversion of CRP land back to row crops does not bode well for water quality, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, or wildlife conservation. As reported in a previous SBFF post (As Dead Zone in Gulf of Mexico Shrinks, Will Perennial Biomass Crops Help Keep It That Way?), nutrient run-off from expanded corn and soy production in the Mississippi watershed has contributed significantly to ground and surface water pollution and the formation of an extensive, oxygen-depleted, dead zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Agriculture is estimated to contribute about half of the excess nutrient load. Opening millions more acres of land to mostly corn production will only compound the pollution.

...There is a better way, of course, to improve farmers’ bottom lines, meet growing demand for food, feed and renewable fuels, and protect the environment. In an article released January 16, 2013, in the journal Nature, "Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the U.S. Midwest", Gelfand and another group of colleagues find that growing and harvesting successional vegetation on marginal lands could produce as much or more renewable fuel per hectare as corn while also absorbing (rather than releasing) carbon from the atmosphere into plants and soils.

And, in another study released earlier this month, "Reduced nitrogen losses after conversion of row crop agriculture to perennial biofuel crops", in the Journal of Environmental Quality, Candice Smith and colleagues report that deep-rooted, perennial biomass crops such as miscanthus, switchgrass, and mixed prairie plants can quickly reduce the flow of nitrate in groundwater and tile drainage systems and reduce N2O emissions into the air compared to corn.

...This body of research raises critical issues and points to important opportunities as Congress resumes consideration of the Farm Bill this year. Current agricultural policies, such as commodity payments and crop insurance subsidies, along with growing global demand, are encouraging the expansion of crop production on marginal lands and discouraging much-needed conservation. The Farm Bills introduced in the House and Senate in 2012, in fact, would continue to reduce CRP acreage, and mandatory funding for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (and other programs that encourage the development and use of sustainable biomass for renewable energy) would be much reduced from levels set in the 2008 Farm Bill. In short, many of the Farm Bill policy trends today are pointing in the wrong direction from the standpoint of environmental sustainability.

This growing body of research would point agricultural policy in a different direction, one in which farmers would be encouraged to expand conservation efforts, vastly improve nutrient management, and plant sustainable perennial biomass crops on marginal lands. READ MORE