Recovering the promise of CSP

Excerpt

In partnership with Environmental Defense and with help from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, SWCS is assessing the performance of four major USDA conservation programs: the Conservation Security Program (CSP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), and the programs used to provide technical assistance for farm bill programs. Our goal is to help the conservation community better understand how these programs are working and to provide recommendations for how they may be improved. The first assessment we completed is of CSP.

Like most conservation organizations, SWCS celebrated the appearance of CSP in the 2002 farm bill, hoping it marked the beginning of a new approach to supporting agriculture and a deeper commitment to encouraging conservation. CSP has great potential to contribute to a well-focused, strategic conservation effort on the nation's working land. Our assessment suggests that CSP has unfortunately fallen far short of that promise.

The CSP statute envisioned an openended stewardship entitlement on a par with crop subsidies, but instead Congress has capped funding for the program six times. Many compromises have been made to adjust vision to budget reality, most of which have been severely criticized. Moreover, because all …