The National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) wants the link between conservation compliance and crop insurance to continue in the next farm bill.
NACD first vice president Tim Palmer of Truro, Iowa, says conservation compliance has been positive for water quality.
“We’re still going to promote compliance with crop insurance and that relationship between producers and subsidies that they get—and expectations that we might all have that there be some payback for that,” Palmer says. “Better water quality is the benefit.”
Other supporters of conservation compliance say it will be a key tool for building alliances with environmental groups as the farm bill negotiations begin this year.
Palmer was elected first vice president of NACD at the group’s recent annual meeting in Denver. He has been farming in Madison County, Iowa, for more than 40 years, raising corn, soybeans and cattle. His conservation practices include cover crops, no-till, grassed waterways, terraces and forage rotations.
“Those cover crops have also been an extra cash crop for me by reducing the number of acres I need to take care of my cow herd,” Palmer says. “I’m grazing those cover crops in the spring early and the fall late, so it’s really an extra feed source.”
Palmer is a past president of Conservation Districts of Iowa.
Source: brownfieldagnews.com