Fueling Debate ; Will Increased Demand for Corn Put Pressure on Grassland Birds?

By CHRIS YOUNG OUTDOORS EDITOR

The push to produce more renewable fuels such as ethanol has to be about the best news for corn growers since Henry Wallace introduced hybrid varieties in the 1920s.

The combination of higher prices for a farmer’s crops and the possibility of more domestically produced fuel seems like a win-win situation.

But some conservationists are wondering if the demand for ethanol ultimately will hurt participation in conservation programs as farmers consider planting more acres of corn.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program pays farmers to take marginal farmland, or land that erodes easily, out of production and plant grass or other cover. Landowners are paid based on local land rental rates.

In Illinois, more than 1 million acres are enrolled in CRP, a program credited with helping improve the numbers of pheasants and other grassland birds.

The Henslow’s sparrow was removed from the Illinois list of threatened and endangered species in 2004, with much of the credit for the bird’s recovery given to habitat created thanks to CRP.

Hal Pyle, district conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, says ground enrolled in conservation programs is less productive and may not yield enough extra corn to make it worth the switch.

“I don’t see or feel any pressure here for folks to break their CRP contracts or stop enrolling in contracts,” he says. “I see more of a management change that it will go back to corn on corn on their flat, black ground.”

Pyle says farmers may forgo traditional crop rotation of planting corn one year and soybeans the next in favor of planting corn each year.

“There has been a lot more anhydrous put on corn stubble down here since we’ve had such good weather,” says Wayne Rosenthal, who farms acreage in Christian, Macoupin and Montgomery counties. “So I’d say there will be a lot of corn on corn to be sure.”

Anhydrous ammonia is a common fertilizer used to replenish nitrogen needed to grow crops like corn.

Landowners who enroll in CRP make a 10- or 15-year commitment and those in midcontract can’t just plant corn on CRP acres without consequence.

“I’m not going to take mine out,” Rosenthal says of his CRP acres. “Probably people won’t take it out and pay the penalty if they haven’t been in very long, but they might not re-enroll (at the contract’s end).”

Rosenthal is a pheasant hunter and habitat coordinator for Sangamon County Pheasants Forever. He runs a hunting preserve on some of his CRP acres. “So it’s a big benefit for us,” he says.

Still, with corn prices pushing higher along with land rental rates, landowners will be crunching the numbers.

“There is no question that as land automatically expires that farmers are going to be making some hard decisions based on the money,” says Dave Nomsen, vice-president of governmental affairs for Pheasants Forever.

“We need to find a way so that CRP and all the incentive-based, voluntary programs remain economically viable and attractive during strong markets like we are experiencing now.”

Nomsen says congressional leaders already have pledged support for CRP when the 2007 farm bill is authorized.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn., appeared together at the annual Pheasant Fest, held last weekend in Des Moines, Iowa.

“The bottom line from both of the chairmen was CRP has been an incredibly successful program and we’d like to see it continue and authorize it for at least the current 39.2 million acres,” Nomsen says.

Pyle says acres enrolled in conservation programs provide wildlife habitat, but also reduce soil erosion and protect water quality.

CRP acres returned to production would have to be farmed carefully.

“I think we would have some erosion and environmental problems, if sound conservation plans were not in place if those areas were returned to cropland,” he says.

“I think producers realize land is in CRP for a reason, and perhaps they can maximize their yields on their land for crop production that is not highly erodable.”

(c) 2007 State Journal Register. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.