New Study Shows CRP Is Saving Taxpayers Billions

A new study exploring the likely effects of scrapping the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) predicts unintended consequences that would drop the price of soybeans, corn and wheat and cost the federal government more than $33 billion.

The study report, "Analysis of the Economic Impacts on the Agricultural Sector of the Elimination of the Conservation Reserve Program," comes from the Agricultural Policy Analysis Center (APAC) at the University of Tennessee. The study examined how elimination of the CRP would affect agricultural commodity prices and how those changes would affect other federal farm programs.

In spite of its conservation appeal, the CRP program is a likely target for budget cuts. More than one-third of CRP contracts with landowners will expire in the next nine years, with a possible removal of 12.6 million acres from the program. Nearly 9 million acres would go back into corn, soybean or wheat production.

The study showed that this additional commodity production would result in price decreases of approximately 31 cents per bushel for corn, 63 cents for wheat and 90 cents for soybeans. Those drops would trigger federal payments to growers totaling $33 billion over the nine-year period. Savings on the CRP program would total $14 billion during the nine-year period for a net increase of approximately $19 billion in federal expenditures.

The APAC study was carried out by Dr. Daniel De La Torre Ugarte and Daniel Hellwinckel and funded by a grant from the American Corn Growers Association, Pheasants Forever, the National Farmers Organization, the American Agriculture Movement, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the Wildlife Management Institute and the Energy Study Institute. For a summary of the APAC study, visit http://www.agpolicy.org/crp.html.

What is CRP?

Congress created CRP in 1987 to address soil erosion and water-quality problems. The idea was to encourage farmers and ranchers to take highly erodible land out of production and plant grasses, trees and shrubs that would hold soil and slow runoff into lakes and streams. In the past 20 years, Congress has added provisions that add wildlife benefits.

No other program in history matches CRP's positive effect on wildlife conservation. Landowners have received payments to set aside nearly 36 million acres, an area larger than all the national wildlife refuges and state wildlife areas in the lower 48 states.