Ducks Unlimited says CRP loss over next four years may be more than five million acres
Bismarck, North Dakota – Ducks Unlimited says the amount of carbon that will be released in the Prairie Pothole Region the next four years from plowing up Conservation Reserve Program grassland will equal 15 million new cars on the road.
Nearly 820,000 acres of CRP grassland disappeared in the Dakotas and Montana in 2007. But DU says this is a drop in the bucket compared to what will be lost over the next four years. New US Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency data shows that nearly 5.6 million acres, or two-thirds of the current CRP in these states, will expire by October 2012.
“This magnitude of CRP loss hurts more than waterfowl populations, it will have a large impact on efforts to fight global warming,” said Scott McLeod, Farm Bill specialist with DU’s Great Plains Regional Office. “This is an absolutely staggering amount of grassland to be losing in such a short period of time and impacts on wildlife will be disastrous.”
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CRP grasslands have the ability to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in the soil. The 5.6 million acres of expiring CRP will have removed and stored more than 172 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the past 10 years. Conversion of CRP to cropland releases stored carbon back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
“Tillage of these acres makes no sense, especially at a time when now, more than ever, the world is focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” McLeod said. “Conservation and sequestered carbon will be lost in an unsustainable rush to produce more ethanol.”
North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana will lose nearly 2.3 million, 1.1 million, and 2.2 million acres, respectively. Portions of these three states make up the bulk of the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) in the US, an area renowned for its importance to breeding waterfowl.
The US Fish and Wildlife Services credits CRP with producing more than 2 million ducks a year. Habitat loss of this magnitude will mean significantly lower production of ducks that migrate through or winter in all of the contiguous 48 states and provide and an important part of the hunters’ bags in those states. Ring-necked pheasants and other grassland dependent wildlife will suffer significant declines as well.
Continued high commodity prices driven by demand for ethanol production, low CRP rental rates and no new CRP general sign-ups have Ducks Unlimited and other conservation groups convinced that a “perfect storm” is leading to the demise of the most successful conservation program ever in the U.S.
“Rental rates for enrolling in CRP are too low and need to better reflect the market. Right now, farmers can make more money by farming those acres, and CRP won’t be a viable option for farmers until rental rates are competitive with cash rent,” McLeod said.
McLeod says that a general sign-up was not held in 2007, and the USDA has indicated that one will not be held in 2008 either. General sign-ups offer the best opportunity to enroll a large number of acres to replace some of the expiring CRP. “If this trend holds beyond 2008, it will be nearly impossible to maintain the population levels that many wildlife species are experiencing today and we’ll go backwards on many other fronts also,” he said.
With more than a million supporters, Ducks Unlimited is the world’s largest and most effective wetland and waterfowl conservation organization with almost 12 million acres conserved. The United States alone has lost more than half of its original wetlands − nature’s most productive ecosystem − and continues to lose more than 80,000 wetland acres each year.
