By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER

Ohio Correspondent

WASHINGTON D.C. — They may be strange bedfellows: The World Wildlife Fund, Center for Rural Affairs, Izaak Walton League of America (IWLA), National Farmers Union (NFU), Union of Concerned Scientists and National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC).

But they’ve joined together to call for a strengthened and expanded Conservation Title in the 2018 farm bill. About 20 of these conservation, wildlife and farming groups formed a coalition and came to a consensus on a fundamental set of provisions to strengthen the conservation title of the bill, which they then sent to U.S. House agricultural committees.

The organizations that have come together around these recommendations are diverse in their membership and their priorities, but are united to tell Congress that conservation needs to be front and center in the next farm bill, said Greg Fogel, policy director of the NSAC.

The most important idea behind the document is the need to strengthen funding and support for voluntary conservation programs that will improve the environment across the United States by engaging producers with practices on their land, said Tom Driscoll, NFU director of conservation policy.

Recently representatives from those groups presented their recommendations to Senate and House agriculture committees’ staff members, said Duane Hovorka, IWLA Agriculture Program director.

“The basic here is that we all recognize the need for more funding for conservation,” he explained. “All of the conservation programs in the farm bill deliver terrific results in terms of water quality, wildlife and open space. We want to make sure that that continues.”

There is increasing realization that environmental and conservation groups need to work more closely with farmers, Driscoll added. Some of these groups are traditional environmental advocacy groups; they lobby for more strict environmental regulations.

“Those are folks that farmers have not always been the most trustful of, so to have people from those different sides of the spectrum come together, that is a big deal,” he said.

The coalition has been meeting since the spring, Driscoll said. They didn’t compromise so much as they identified common values and priorities. Of concern was the cut in conservation funding in the 2014 farm bill and the fact that more cuts came on an annual basis through the appropriations process.

The ag committees were welcoming to coalition representatives and interested in their input, Hovorka said. They were frank in recognizing that these are difficult financial budget times – there are challenges in maintaining and especially increasing funding for conservation.

“I think we hear the message in terms of a difficult funding situation, but there is a need and also some opportunities to make sure that the money that we’re spending now in these programs gets spent even more effectively,” he explained.

Another aspect of the provisions the coalition set forth was some basic conservation compliance program benefits that are accountable to taxpayers.

“The Swampbuster program requires that if a producer is going to get insurance, subsidies or commodity program benefits that, as a farmer, you ought to not drain wetlands,” Hovorka said. “Those kinds of basic conservation provisions we all agreed are important to maintain in the next farm bill.”

America's producers are increasingly facing losses to extreme weather events, poor soil quality and other environmental factors, Fogel explained.

“By improving conservation programs and increasing funding for the farm bill's Conservation Title, Congress can stand up for family farmers and help them to conserve natural resources, mitigate risk and ensure that their farms and lands will be viable for future generations to come,” he said.