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Bipartisan bill tackles conservation reform

An Ohio Senator says a new bipartisan bill will refocus conservation spending on the most environmentally-sensitive farmland.

Sherrod Brown says the Give Our Resources the Opportunity to Work Act of 2018 would cap the Conservation Reserve Program at 24 million acres and make prime farmland ineligible for enrollment.

“We want the areas that are the most important for conservation and we want to incentive farmers to put them out of production and use it in this program,” he says. “But, we want farmers to be able to make profits from the areas that are the most productive.”

He tells Brownfield the bill would improve soil health and water quality, but it will also benefit farmers.

“Farmers want to plant to the market, not the program, and we’ve sort of evolved into that in the last number of years,” he says.

The bill would also maintain enrollment in the Conservation Stewardship Program and funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, who is also working on the bill, says the GROW Act would level the playing field for beginning farmers looking for farmland.

The GROW Act is co-sponsored by Ernst, Brown, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, and Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey.

Audio: Sherrod Brown, Ohio Senator