An Urban's Rural View

On Cover Crops, USDA Speaks With Forked Tongue

Urban C Lehner
By  Urban C Lehner , Editor Emeritus
Connect with Urban:
@urbanize

A farmer who has been held up as a model by one arm of USDA could lose his farm after getting crossways with another.

Gail Fuller's quandary was set forth in a fascinating and disturbing story on DTN/The Progressive Farmer by Ag Policy Editor Chris Clayton (http://goo.gl/… ). It's a tale that makes you wonder whether USDA's agencies talk to each other.

Fuller plants cover crops on his 1,800-acre farm near Salinas, Kansas, a farm USDA's Natural Resource Conservation Service has used for demonstration tours. Last year unrelenting heavy winds made it impossible for Fuller to burn off his cover crops before planting soybeans and other cash crops. 

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That runs afoul of a USDA Risk Management Agency rule, and as a result Fuller had his 2012 crop-insurance policy canceled. If his appeal of the cancellation fails, he could lose his farm.

Each organization is just doing what it does. Promoting cover crops is consistent with NRCS's mandate. Protecting insurance-protected cash crops is consistent with RMA's.

RMA says it's working to make sure farmers who plant cover crops are eligible for crop insurance. But that hasn't helped Gail Fuller.

"Local and state officials in various capacities are now advocating for farmers to grow more covers largely because of the effects cover crops have in reducing dust storms and improving water quality in rivers and streams," Clayton reported. "An increasing number of states pay farmers or provide cost-share for cover crops in parts of the Chesapeake Bay or Mississippi River basins.

"Thus, producers who grow cover crops are questioning how a farmer can lose his insurance policy for protecting the soil from erosion while bare fields are not penalized."

It's a good question. And here's another. How can USDA let its agencies work at cross-purposes?

Urban Lehner

urbanity@hotmail.com

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Master Content User
2/5/2013 | 8:11 AM CST
Urban, I just finished reading your DTN blog regarding Gail Fuller's situation. I have known him personally for at least 4 years. We met at No-Till on the Plains winter conference in Salina, KS about 2009. First and foremost my impression is that he is just what he seems very honest and sincere about doing more than just conservation. He is taking the next step which is rebuilding and regenerating soil on his farm. My wife and I attended a Workshop he organized in Emporia, KS last July. We spent 2 days of intensive classroom and out in the field at Gail's farm learning about soil and the living microbes in the soil and how to use that knowledge to benefit the crops and mankind. Gail, Ryan Speer also from Kansas and myself will spend 3 days next giving presentations at Nebraska's 3 No-Till education conferences with 3 stops, Hallam, Norfolk, and Holdrege along with Paul Jasa, UNL Ext. Ag Engineer and No-Till expert. We had a somewhat similar situation in this county. A father and son farming team had mixed a few radishes and turnips in with the rye and wheat mix they planted on some heavy clay bottom soils to make it more mellow for spring planting which it did. But radishes and turnips are classified as vegetable crops and all acres being cropped presently were classified as base acres. This put them in violation of FSA regs for planting vegetables on base acres even though most of the radishes and turnips were winter killed. My observation is this we have 2 government agencies whose policies are colliding and a farmer trying to do the right thing for the long term food security of our nation who will pay the price for bureaucratic bumbling. We have a congress who thinks "Independent Wealth" comes from a printing press and the soil will feed us forever even though we lose more every year than can be rebuilt. I have been planting cover crops and using longer rotations to build soil instead of letting it go down the stream for many years. It could just as well be me if the wind had been blowing 25mph all summer. What I saw when we were in Emporia last summer Gail just saved some money and made a cleaner environment by not spraying. They weren't going to raise a crop. The big question is are we going to do what is right. Current farming methods are not sustainable. A quick check of the calories spent to produce the food we eat and the calories produced will reveal that we are investing a lot more than is being returned. Paul Ackley Bedford, IA Farming since 1969
Ric Ohge
2/4/2013 | 9:08 AM CST
Ask any Native American who ever signed a Treaty with "The Great White Fathers"...they've always known they speak with "forked tongues". (Now the American Farmer and Voters in general are getting some traction from that dynamic.) When you see what a quagmire American Industry and Business has become, then you "backdoor" their leftovers into positions in Agencies like the USDA and FDA, WHY would anyone expect anything different. "It's STILL time to drain the swamp."