The Farmland Stewardship Program - 35 Reasons Why it Works Better than Existing Programs

The Farmland Stewardship Program is the ultimate "green payment" incentive program. Here's why--

1. It's cost efficient. NO NEW MONEY IS NEEDED to implement the Farmland Stewardship Program. That's because it draws on existing program funds for the assembly of stewardship agreements, and delivers these program dollars to producers in a much more effective, efficient way.

2. It's a "blending tool." It's primary purpose is to implement, and combine together, other conservation programs at the federal, state and local levels.

3. It's effective. The Farmland Stewardship Program creates a mechanism to allow existing conservation programs to be more precisely tailored to and targeted at the specific conservation needs and opportunities presented by individual parcels of property.

As a result, It delivers conservation where it is needed, in the form it is needed, and in a way that can be easily adapted to local conditions.

4. It can be used as a "stand alone" program to implement conservation practices on private agricultural lands.

5. It can be used to "fill in gaps" between existing programs.

6. It can be used as a "one stop" conservation contract to apply for and implement any type of conservation program on private lands. As a result, it makes existing programs much more accessible to owners/operators.

7. It offers voluntary, incentive-based payments to American farmers and ranchers to improve watershed quality, drinking water supplies, surface and ground water conservation, nutrient management and agricultural sustainability.

8. It offers critical support to the farm economy. The Farmland Stewardship program will improve profitability for producers by providing a reliable, dependable revenue stream to supplement regular farm income.

9. It's innovative. It can be used to help farmers establish experimental crops. It also can be used to encourage the development and use of crops and crop by-products as bio-fuels to help meet the nation’s energy needs.

10. It's practical. It can be used to combine different regulatory obligations into a single operating plan.

11. It's simple. The Farmland Stewardship Program takes a streamlined approach to the administration of all existing conservation programs, by consolidating many different programs together through a one-stop-shopping approach, with one application, one conservation farm plan, one set of paperwork, one all-encompassing agreement and a single payment system.

As a result, needless expense, paperwork and delay is eliminated, so that limited tax dollars can be used, not for administration, but for putting conservation on the ground.

12. It's completely flexible. It can be used to buy any "service" from a private owner/operator in which there is a public benefit.

13. It can improve farm management. The Farmland Stewardship Program is part conservation plan, part business plan, part economic development plan, and part research and development plan.

14. It will "leverage" exiting dollars many times over. Every dollar earmarked for conservation in every existing program – federal, state, regional, local and private – can be delivered through the Farmland Stewardship Program. And it can be delivered through a single application and a single agreement.

Moreover, money from existing programs can be leveraged many times over through a series of additional “service contracts” that can be implemented by other interested agencies (especially local governments) that are able to expend funds to carry out specific objectives, consistent with their missions. These contracts – and the funds they bring with them – can be blended into the Farmland Stewardship Agreement. Again, just a single application and agreement is needed.

15. It can be used as a model contract by local governments to "buy services" from private owners/operators without using any federal funds and without administration/oversight of the federal government.

16. It was designed through a five-year-long collaborative process, with input from over 500 ag producers, ag commodity groups, conservation interests and representatives agencies at all levels of government.

In fact, two almost identical programs were developed independently by two different groups working on two different issues in two different parts of the country -- endangered species in Florida and flood mitigation in Minnesota and the Dakotas.

17. It was designed from the local level up specifically FOR ag owners/operators BY ag owners/operators.

18. It provides opportunities for – and directs funding to – more producer-initiated conservation plans. The Farmland Stewardship Program assesses conservation needs on the ground, at the local level. It then brings together a mosaic of existing programs, tailors them to the specific needs that must be addressed on each individual parcel of land, and combines everything together in a single agreement.

19. It pays an owner/operator for time and materials required to gather data, create plans and negotiate contract, beginning with exchange of letter in which intent to cooperate is pledged through date when the final contract is executed.

20. It pays for all technical services to prepare plans and negotiate and execute contract.

21. It provides for "third party certification," allowing a federal agency (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service) to "certify" local conservation districts, land trusts, state-chartered entities and other local groups to act as "contracting agencies" to carry out and monitor contracts.

22. It complements current conservation programs. It does not replace other federal conservation programs. Farmers can still receive incentive and cost-share payments under federal agriculture programs that cover land enrolled in the Farmland Stewardship Program. A participant may receive payment and cost-share from any other non-federal source on the same land enrolled in the FSP. The FSP simply ties all programs together into a single agreement.

23. It requires that dedicated program funding must be combined with funding from other programs or sources at federal, state or local levels or from private sources.

24. It can be administered and managed almost entirely at local level with only nominal oversight and coordination by a federal agency. As a result, it provides a means of avoiding agency "turf wars," by limiting the scope of each agency's responsibilities and participation specifically to the programs that are administered by that agency, while allowing an independent organization to design, apply for and monitor stewardship agreements at the local level.

25. It can be used to expand opportunities for carrying out conservation activities on private lands and for providing payments to owners/operators for "ecological services."

26. It provides a comprehensive, flexible, voluntary approach to farm conservation policy by providing incentive payments to all farmers and ranchers for maintaining or adopting conservation practices on native lands and on land in production.

27. It promotes conservation and protection of soil, water, and energy; protection of wetlands and wildlife habitat; and bio-diversity.

28. It provides opportunities for payments to owners/operators for conservation practices that maintain the ecological integrity of native lands, habitats for listed species, wetlands and other natural resources that already are in excellent condition.

29. It provides opportunities for payments to owners/operators for conservation practices that restore or improve the ecological functions of native habitats, wetlands and other natural resources on private lands.

30. It provides numerous opportunities for payments to owners/operators to provide "services" that address social, economic, land use, transportation, and energy production needs of local communities.

31. No matter what it is, if there is something society wants an owner/operator to do, the Farmland Stewardship Program provides a means of "hiring" an owner/operator to to it.

32. Payment criteria include: Environmental benefit; forgone income for maintaining or instituting the practices; benefit to wildlife; cumulative watershed benefit (if a certain percentage of landowners in a watershed participate, the payment is higher); costs associated with farm research and demonstration projects; and costs of monitoring the results.

33. It makes payments based on the market value of the service or services rendered.

34. Payments fit into the "green box" and are not trade distorting.

35. It focuses on the importance of the producer's plan, contract or agreement as the driver for the program.

As Ernie Caldwell, Vice President of Government and Environmental Affairs for Berry Holding Corporation in Winter Park, Florida, and an original member of the Landowner Working Group advising Stewardship America, observes:

"The Farmland Stewardship Program is something most landowners and producers should be willing to accept, even want to accept, because of the way it is written and because it will pay them carry out the type of management practices that will benefit both the environment and their operations. I know of producers who don't carry out some management practices now, even though they could, because the expense is too great and there is no way of passing on any of these costs to the consumer. In fact, the only way to cover these costs is to take them out of the bottom line. The way the bottom line is in ag these days, there simply is no room for any expense or requirement that doesn't pay its way."