The Farm Bill passed yesterday by the House Agriculture Committee falls far short of what's needed to reward farmers and ranchers when they take steps to the help the environment.

Farmers manage 70 percent of the landscape, so we can't solve some of the nation's biggest environmental challenges unless we reward — not reject — farmers when they offer to share the cost of clean water and wildlife habitat. Unfortunately, USDA would continue to turn away two-out-of-three farmers when they offer to share the cost of a healthier environment.

The bill would increase funding for voluntary USDA conservation programs by just $3 billion over five years — far less than proposals by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and more than 220 members of House.

The conservation provisions of the Peterson package is even less ambitious than the proposal by the Bush Administration!

In particular, the proposal shortchanges the Grasslands Reserve Program, a voluntary program designed to protect our grasslands from conversion to corn and condos.

Rising corn prices driven by the federal ethanol mandate have made it economically feasible to convert pasture and rangelands to grow corn, posing major new environmental challenges. The loss of grasslands will threaten hundreds of species and increase the use of water and farm chemicals. The "marginal" lands that are being converted in response to the ethanol mandate are far more likely to leak fertilizers into our rivers and bays and to host endangered species.

Expansion of the GRP would have been the thoughlful response to one of the unintended consequences of the biofuels boom. Unfortunately, the committee's proposal would provide only $48 million a year for the GRP, which has the largest program backlog in the nation.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made expansion of the Grasslands Reserve Program a personal priority. Expanding the program to protect 5 million acres would cost about $200 million a year — which could be easily generated by reducing the direct payment rate on corn by just two cents a bushel.

As the Ruminant has noted, direct payments were created to wean farmers off subsidies and are hard to justify in a time of high crop prices. But, the Committee would sign up farmers for these "transition" payments for a third time.

Speaker Pelosi should work with Chairman Peterson to make needed cuts to direct payments to address the nation's environmental challenges before the Farm Bill reaches the floor next week.