ACP, a weak sister no more

Excerpt

In late April, at oversight hearings on RCA and USDA conservation programs conducted by Congressman George Brown's agriculture subcommittee, Gordell Brown, director of the Conservation and Environmental Protection Division of ASCS, acknowledged that “modifications have been made in certain areas” in the course of implementing the variable cost-share project (two counties in Texas have dropped out of the program, while five Tennessee counties were recently added). However, ASCS officials claim the voluntary program has been enthusiastically received in most states, and there is reason to believe the experience in Jefferson County will prove atypical.

Fortunately, conservationists will not have to rely solely on anecdote or opinion to guage the value of the experiment because its costs and erosion control benefits will be quantified, much as the entire ACP program has been evaluated since 1878. Depending upon the outcome of the evaluation, “the [pilot] program will be expanded, changed, or dropped,” according to ASCS officials.

ACP has been criticized from its inception in the 1930s as being aimed less at solving conservation problems than at enhancing farm production and income. Even some conservationists have questioned ACP priorities and procedures. Nevertheless, in a predictable bit …