By KEVIN WALKER

Michigan Correspondent

LANSING, Mich. — A coalition of farmer, agricultural business and conservation groups in the Great Lakes region has formed to try to put its stated priorities front and center, as legislators continue work on the 2018 farm bill.

The coalition, as yet unnamed, includes the American Water Works Assoc., Ducks Unlimited, Great Lakes Commission, Michigan Farm Bureau, National Wildlife Federation, Ohio Environmental Council and The Fertilizer Institute.

A coalition statement earlier this month calls on Congress to increase funding and implement policy reforms to improve working lands, easements, habitat restoration and invasive species control programs; expand technical assistance to promote the adoption of successful practices; and strengthen methods for demonstrating conservation success, improve research and support state certification programs.

Conservation programs under the farm bill help farmers in the Great Lakes region achieve conservation goals they care deeply about, said Laura Campbell, agriculture ecology department manager at the Michigan Farm Bureau.

According to the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), since the 1990s farm bills have remained on a set schedule, yet due to a variety of delays they have been completed roughly on a six-year basis – usually a year late. Most of the 2014 farm bill is set to expire this September.

Prior to 1985 there were zero dollars authorized in any farm bill for conservation, NSAC explained. Beginning with the 1985 bill, however, $1 billion was earmarked for the Conservation Reserve Program. Since then, every farm bill has included more funds for conservation, with the exception of the 2014 bill.

Today, there is well over $5 billion in the farm bill for conservation, including $1 billion each for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), which NSAC describes as “the two big working lands programs that NSAC played such a prominent role in creating and nurturing.”

“Everyone agrees that protecting and restoring the Great Lakes and safeguarding our drinking water are critically important,” said John Linc Stine, chair of the Great Lakes Commission and commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. “We’re excited to present these joint farm bill program priorities to Congress, and urge them to protect the environment, economy and drinking water in the Great Lakes region.”

Coalition members would like to see improvements made to the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, EQIP, CSP and others. It would like to see more flexibility in program administration, and more opportunities to partner with landowners and other non-federal partners.

Specifically, the group would like to expand the number of qualified service providers by clarifying the definition of “technical service providers” and allowing for creative public-private partnerships. It would also like to see more transparent methods for measuring success of the programs and demonstrating the value of farm bill programs, including required measurements of conservation outcomes for all conservation title programs.

The group also wants to expand the Conservation Effects Assessment Project to assess the impacts of practices on wildlife and water quality, in coordination with state water quality agencies, and support state-led certification programs that promote conservation efforts by farmers.