Green Acres: Helping Farmers Help the Environment

Posted: 26-Jun-2007; Updated: 01-Feb-2008

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Green Acres details how changes to agriculture policies can help solve some of our most pressing environmental problems. (Photo: NRCS)

This week Environmental Defense will release "Green Acres: Helping Farmers Help the Environment," [PDF] a new report on opportunities for agriculture to address America’s environmental challenges in the 2007 Farm Bill, including water quality, air quality, open space preservation, and the recovery of rare species.

America’s farmers, ranchers and forest landowners manage roughly 70% of the American landscape, so agriculture has a dramatic impact on the quality of our rivers, lakes and bays, on the fate of rare species and on the pace of sprawl. Farmers have dramatically improved their stewardship of private lands in recent years, including the adoption of soil-conserving tillage practices, more precise use of chemicals and water, and greater protection and restoration of habitat for wildlife. However, agriculture continues to pose environmental challenges: agriculture is a leading threat to endangered species, remains the most commonly cited source of water pollution, and is the nation’s largest consumer of freshwater.

Farmers would do much more to meet our environmental challenges, but most farmers offering to share the cost of clean water and wildlife habitat are turned away because of our misplaced spending priorities. What’s more, our federal farm policies can send powerful economic signals through farm and crop insurance subsidies that encourage farmers to plow up environmentally sensitive lands. 

Green Acres provides a summary of the accomplishments, remaining challenges, and needed reforms that should be included in the 2007 Farm Bill.