Thanks for calling the original source of The Economist's data in this regard to my attention and to Gristmill's readers. Yes, having spent a good deal of time in Europe the last several years, I am familiar with the CAP cross-compliance regulations, but thanks for making that connection.

Tom

Thomas L. Dobbs Professor Emeritus of Economics, South Dakota State University, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food & Society Policy Fellow

Your points are all well taken. But we can't just give up on cross-compliance, at least so long as the commodity subsidy system remains in place--as it will for at least this next farm bill. And we need to add new restrictions, particularly with respect to continuous cropping of a crop like corn.

Tom

Thomas L. Dobbs Professor Emeritus of Economics, South Dakota State University, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food & Society Policy Fellow

Many folks also miss the subtext that Democrats wished to balance any increase in subsidies with increases in taxes, a process known as "Pay-Go" ... all of which Bush has vetoed because he doesn't like taxes.  So, for what, 7 billion or whatever in handouts, the President just added perhaps 14 billion in debt.  Whoops, was the pork left in the Farm Bill as well?  Great going, Prez!

That's in direct cash, baby, and few people have taken a close look at indirect costs of soil erosion and downstream water pollution.  Many of the secondary-tier impact studies such as UN and EU focussed on negative impacts in terms of less protein per capita in developing countries (cost margin and avoidance method).  But I can also say, that because of the same policies, the price of tortillas in Mexico have nearly tripled.  Whoa, that's considered a developed country, isn't it?

I'm surprised there aren't riots in the streets.

Onward through the fog

"we need to add new restrictions, particularly with respect to continuous cropping of a crop like corn."

Tom, I'm pretty certain your proposal would not help much.  

For one, farmers need to adapt to markets with more cropping flexibility than this kind of regulation would permit.  If the markets are screwed up due to ethanol subsidies, we need to attack that at the source.  

Second, from strictly a soil erosion perspective, continuous corn, coupled with minimum tillage, probably results in less soil erosion than a corn/soy rotation which leaves far less protective soil cover following soybeans.  More nitrogen fertilizer is needed in a continuous corn system so there does remain the chance for higher nitrogen runoff and drainage into waterways.  

Lastly, the more I learn about how poorly current regulations are being administered I question whether adding more regulations would be effective.  Of course, the Bush administration has done every thing it can to undermine the authority of many agencies and it would require a concerted effort to restore them to a meaningful level of functionality.  But, I have also had first hand experience with some of these agencies and find that they are extremely ossified by rigid bureaucracy and turf battles among competing agencies.  I am not at all certain that it is worth attempting to reform them.  

If we do not recognize that Washington is a huge part of our troubles and keep looking in that direction to solve many of our problems we will continue to be deeply disappointed.  In this respect I can relate to conservative, small governmnent arguments.  But they use this argument to undermine agency authority to suit their interests.  Perhaps we do need to think about streamlining government to boost agency authority to better suit our interests.  Is it any wonder that this was one of Al Gore's primary efforts while he was vice president?  There are big elements of federal and state government that should get the deep six while transfering their wasted capital to the areas that need strengthening.  

Of course, if there is no enforcement, it won't make any difference what the cross-compliance regulations are. "Justlou" suggests that maybe "small government" is a better way to go, rather than add more reg's. But we don't have "small government" when we have the Federal government poring out billions of dollars every year under the farm commodity programs. As long as that kind of "big government" continues, it is imperative that the public insist on reasonable conservation in return. The 1985 Federal farm bill was the breakthrough policy legislation in that regard. As the EWG report points out, there are a lot of problems with meaningful enforcement of the conservation compliance reg's at this time. But the solution is not to abandon the cross-compliance reg's, but to strengthen them and put in place an Executive branch that really wants to enforce them. With the current President, there is probably not much hope of meaningful enforcement of environmental reg's in agriculture or any other sector.

A cross-compliance regulation prohibiting continuous corn would actually be fairly easy to enforce, if there is government will. Every farm receiving commodity subsidies should be required to file a rotation plan. Obviously, weather and market conditions necessitate some flexibility when it comes planting time. But unlimited flexibility should not be allowed: back-to-back planting of corn on the same field should not be allowed. Farmers would be required to report what is planted on each field, and spot checks could be done to monitor for violations of this corn-following-corn prohibition.

I don't like to be put in the position of defending the Midwest's corn/soybean rotation. As I said in my post, this is not much of a rotation (from an ecological perspective), but it does beat continuous corn. I don't believe I' ve ever met an agronomist who would advocate continuous corn over a corn/soybean rotation--from an ecological perspective--except possibly some agronomists with vested interests, such as ones working for GM seed and chemcal input industries. Yes, continuous corn does excist as a production practice, propped up by GM seeds and other technologies. But ecology and history tell us that agriculture based on monoculture usually is not sustainable. Insect and weed resistances build up, requiring ever more exotic chemicals, genetic engineering, etc. It's a great game for those industries and researchers who make their living by trying to keep ahead of nature. But, ultimately, it is a game that can not be won. In the long run, nature wins out and demands biodiversity.

I think we need a national conversation about what kinds of rotations, generally, should be allowed for farmers receiving commodity subsidies. Corn-following-corn should just be the start of that conversation. Probably soybeans-following-soybeans should not be allowed, either.

Let the conversation begin. What about other crop systems across the country?

Tom

Thomas L. Dobbs Professor Emeritus of Economics, South Dakota State University, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation Food & Society Policy Fellow