Low landowner payments derail farm bill conservation program

RIDGELAND, Miss., April 4, 2007 - Mississippi duck hunters and farmers are losing a once robust wetlands conservation program. After conserving almost 160,000 acres of bottomland hardwood forests and wetlands critical to waterfowl in Mississippi, the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) is near death in Mississippi and other southern states. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), the federal agency that administers WRP, is getting fewer participants since the program’s land appraisal process changed in 2006.

“Ducks Unlimited’s motto during the crafting of the next federal farm bill is ‘Farm the best, conserve the rest,’ and WRP is a significant farm bill program that allows farmers to do that,” said Ken Babcock, director of Ducks Unlimited’s (DU) Southern Regional Office in Ridgeland, Miss.

The land appraisal changes decreased the easement payment offers to landowners causing a drastic decline in acceptance of WRP contracts. WRP enrollment in Mississippi dropped from 29 of 36 offers accepted in 2005 restoring 8,400 acres to zero of 57 offers accepted in 2006 following the appraisal changes.

“The WRP land appraisal process needs to be fixed in the 2007 farm bill to ensure farmers, ranchers and other landowners receive a fair payment for WRP easements,” Babcock said. “Waterfowl and Mississippi duck hunters are in big trouble if we lose this program. WRP plays a critical role in helping DU accomplish our conservation mission through restoring wetlands and bottomland hardwood forests on private lands.” 

WRP is a federally funded, voluntary farm bill conservation program. It provides landowners with technical assistance and financial incentives to convert flood-prone, marginal agricultural land to former wetland conditions and seasonally flooded forests. The program helps landowners protect soil and water resources and establish long-term conservation of wildlife habitat. As wetland restoration experts, DU works with the NRCS and private landowners to implement WRP.

Since 1998, DU has partnered with NRCS to restore wetlands and bottomland hardwood forests on over 40,000 acres in Mississippi through WRP. However, unless the method used to appraise these properties is changed to reflect current agricultural land values, this critical conservation program will go unused in Mississippi and the federal funds will be redirected to other states.

WRP is one of Ducks Unlimited's highest priorities for the 2007 farm bill. In addition to changes in the appraisal process, additional funding will be required to meet the full potential of farm bill conservation provisions and the needs of farmers and ranchers. DU seeks to maintain at least 250,000 acres in WRP annually with a nationwide cap of 3,525,000 acres. WRP will disappear in October 2007 unless the program is reauthorized in the new farm bill.

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.

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