Home News & Events Action Alert: Help Stop Subsidies for Huge Livestock Operations

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Action Alert: Help Stop Subsidies for Huge Livestock Operations
Your letters and calls are needed before 11/25/96 to make sure EQUIP funds help small- to moderate-sized farms, as they were intended.

Background:

USDA is writing rules to implement the new Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The program provides cost-share payments to farmers to establish conservation practices, both for crop and livestock production. Congress said that the cost-share funds could not be used by "large" livestock operations but left it to USDA to define a large operations.

USDA now lacks the backbone to set effective national limits, leaving the decision to individual states. Your hard work persuaded Congress to amend the EQIP legislation to deny subsidies to large livestock operations to construct manure management structures. Many of you also took the time to go to Farm Bill forums in your state this month. But USDA needs to hear your voice once again.

USDA is playing fast and loose with the numbers!

The Agency's tallied responses from hearings and public forums gives them the basis for deciding rules on various controversial parts of a particular program. In the case of EQIP, USDA claims that they have received only a handful of responses on herd size pushing for federal limits, compared to dozens on the other side. We must turn around these supposed numbers with written comments.

Action Needed:

Submit your written comments to:

Lloyd Wright, Director
Conservation & Ecosystem Assistance Division
USDA/NRCS
PO Box 2890
Washington, DC 20013

We also urge you to send a copy of your letter to your Senators (see the Congressional Directory for contact information) and modify your letter and send it in to your local paper as a letter to the editor.

Key points to make about EQIP include:
  • USDA should follow Congress's direction and not subsidize large confinement operations through EQIP. USDA should limit support to small and moderate-size operations with up to 1,000 head of beef cattle or 2,500 hogs.
  • More than 98 percent of farms with cattle and hogs fall below this limit, which is used for the Clean Water Act and other federal programs. This limit is actually higher than it appears, because it is for inventory at any one time, not annual sales; and calves and piglets are counted as fractions of animals.
  • EQIP should support composting, manure application at agronomic rates, and other environmentally sound practices, rather than simply providing funds for leaky lagoons.
  • Providing states flexibility to manage federal programs is fine in some cases, but not when it would allow unfair competition between states and puts small to moderate size farmers at a disadvantage.
Tell USDA Not to Subsidize Huge Livestock Operations!

Action Alert prepared by Kris Thorpe, Center for Rural Affairs, Walthill, Neb. email: HN1721@handsnet.org

For an update, see: Comments to USDA Favor Livestock Limits -- 78% say limit the size of farms eligible for EQIP funds, according to a survey by the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture.

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