Rich Landers: Farm Bill needs full attention

Imagine the recreational and economic losses our nation would suffer if there were 2.2 million fewer ducks, 13.5 million fewer pheasants, an additional 170,000 miles of unprotected streams, 40 million fewer acres of wildlife habitat and 450 million additional tons of topsoil disappearing every year.

That barely offers a sense of what’s at stake next week, when the 2007 Farm Bill is scheduled to reach the floor of the U.S. Senate.

Everyone from ardent hunters to casual bird watchers should carve out a few moments in the next few days to contact senators. Remind them that conservation programs in the Farm Bill are of monumental importance to fish and wildlife, and everyone who appreciates or benefits from them.

In addition to specific agriculture programs, the Farm Bill is the funding umbrella for Conservation Reserve (CRP), Wetlands Reserve and five other programs that have direct correlation to boosting wildlife in a world where habitat is declining faster than Britney Spears’ career.

The proposed funding to continue these conservation programs is roughly 7 percent of the $286 billion earmarked for the entire Farm Bill package. But a lot of hands are grabbing for money in this bill, and nothing is assured.

That small percentage includes about nine times more money for wildlife habitat than Ducks Unlimited has collected at fundraising banquets since 1937.

It’s more than the entire budget for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

While improving air and water quality, the CRP program creates 36 million acres of habitat across the nation – an area larger than the entire National Wildlife Refuge System in the lower 48 states.

That’s why wildlife groups such as DU and the National Wildlife Federation have people working full time to help Congress understand the value in projects such as those that provide permanent cover along streams and steep hillsides in the Palouse.

That’s why every gun dog club, bird-watching group and fishing organization ought to be motivating members to call senators this week.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, which represents a wide range of sportsmen and conservation groups, is devoting several staffers in Washington, D.C., to relaying to lawmakers the information from biologists and other scientists in the field supporting these programs.

If you’re into Web sites, check out www.trcp.org.

The bill as it stands falls short of the funding these groups have sought, but it also takes some positive steps.

One provision devotes $20 million to state sportsmen’s access, such as Montana’s Block Management Program and Washington’s Feel Free to Hunt program.

Don Larsen, who works full time on these issues for the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department, said a $500,000 share of that funding would increase this state’s private land access program budget by more than 40 percent.

“We’re facing a big issue in the next five years as Washington’s CRP contracts expire,” he said, noting that higher wheat prices and other factors may encourage many of these farmers to put their land back into production.

“We have 1.56 million acres of CRP in Washington,” he said. “About 35,000 acres expire this year and next year we lose 230,000 acres and more after that.”

If the CRP program is not funded and available, the farmers will have little choice but to plow up some of the region’s valuable cover for sharptails and pheasants, deer and many other species.

Four out of every five producers who apply to participate in conservation programs are turned away because of funding shortages.

During my annual fall return to my roots in Montana recently, I enjoyed a day of grouse hunting and fishing with Jim Range, a TRCP board member and former chief counsel to former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.).

Range caught my attention as a sportsman when I learned that he purchased 1.5 miles of land bordering a prime trout stretch of the Missouri River near Craig – and he put the entire farm into conservation easement that allows farming and public access to the river while forever protecting the land from being subdivided and developed.

“Sportsmen have an insular community,” he said. “We do a lot of good things and talk to ourselves a lot, but that doesn’t get presidents elected. It doesn’t get action in Congress.

“Sportsmen have to be about more than guns. They have to be able to make a point and apply pressure regardless of who’s in office.”

He said the Farm Bill plows common ground for nearly every sportsman and other conservationists.

“This is a place for sportsmen to make their voices heard,” he said.

As long as I’m sharing important numbers, consider these:

“Sen. Maria Cantwell, toll free phone (888) 648-7328.

“Sen. Patty Murray, toll free (866) 481-9186.

To find e-mail and other contacts for senators, use the following Internet address and substitute the last name of your senator, regardless of state: murray.senate.gov/contact/

You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508, or e-mail to richl@spokesman.com.