TY - JOUR T1 - Cross-compliance: Is it bold, menacing or just plain dumb? JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 250 LP - 251 VL - 39 IS - 4 AU - Ken Cook Y1 - 1984/07/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/39/4/250.abstract N2 - THE controversial idea of requiring soil conservation of farmers who receive crop price supports is at least as old as the Brannan Plan of 1949. In fact, “cross-compliance” is about the only provision of that plan that is not now federal policy. As recently as 1980, the mention of cross-compliance as an “alternative strategy” for federal conservation policy, combined with public support for it in a Harris poll, triggered yet another skunk fight between the Soil Conservation Service and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. The first round of RCA never smelled quite the same thereafter. Recent farmer opinion polls suggest cross-compliance no longer inflames nerves the way it once did. But the official positions of major farm and commodity organizations have not yet softened to reflect whatever evolving views may be detectable among their memberships. Informally, leaders of these groups will tell you they sense a shift in farmer opinion, but they expect to continue to oppose cross-compliance proposals, as they did a suggestion last year to revive nonpoint pollution policy with the leverage of federal commodity programs. There is no shortage of talk about cross-compliance in Washington these days, only a shortage of forthright vision of what such a policy would mean. … ER -