Report: Farm subsidies contribute to wetland damage

Crop insurance subsidies from the federal government have contributed to the loss of wetlands, threatening wildlife and water quality, according to a report released Monday.

A “very, very strong correlation” exists between those payments to farmers and the erosion of wetlands, Scott Faber, vice president of governmental affairs with the Environmental Working Group, said Monday in a conference call about the group’s report, “Plowed Under.”

The nation's wetlands buffer waterways against soil erosion and nutrient pollution, and they serve as habitat for diverse wildlife, Faber said. But insurance subsidies have encouraged farmers to plant on those lands because they can get paid even if their crops fail.

“Many farmers are choosing to plow up land they frankly wouldn’t be planting if they were responding to markets,” Faber said.

Meanwhile, the future of agriculture-related conservation programs is hung up in Congress. The main five-year farm bill, pushed by House Republicans, would not require farmers to meet conservation requirements to get crop insurance subsidies. The Senate version of the bill would force farmers to meet the requirements. 

House GOP leaders have delayed calling the five-year bill for a vote, which has shielded some Republican freshmen from making politically difficult votes. The Senate has passed its version of the farm bill.

Both versions of the bill would cut $6.4 billion from conservation programs.

Between 2008 and 2011, about 23.7 million acres were converted to farmland, the report says, citing Agriculture Department statistics. That is because American taxpayers back about 62 percent of crop insurance premiums, thereby incentivizing farmers to plow lands that normally would not generate a profit, Faber said.