Conservation policy futures: An overview

Excerpt

HOW many times have you heard that we are on the verge of major change in soil and water conservation policy? Several times in the last 20 years-in the- mid 1970s with Section 208 nonpoint source planning, in 1985 with Title XI1 of the Food Security Act (FSA), in 1990 with the Food Agriculture Conservation and Trade Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act, and now with a new administration sympathetic to environmental improvement but facing drastic budget reductions. Despite periodic bold forecasts, the legacy is one of incremental change, except perhaps for the FSA compliance measures. Some think the policy process does and should work in this incremental, small step fashion (9). But others argue that we need to look up periodically from incremental change and see if we are headed in the “right” direction (8).

Where conservation policy has been

The history of modern agricultural conservation programs at local, state, and federal levels …