ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN : Loss of duck habitat will have far-reaching effects
BRYAN HENDRICKS
Posted on Sunday, January 20, 2008
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For months, Ducks Unlimited has been forecasting doom over the loss of duck nesting habitat in the Prairie Pothole region.
I generally recoil from overt pessimism, but in this case, DU is probably right.
Thanks to the federal government’s aggressive promotion of ethanol as an alternative to petroleum fuel, the price of corn is stratospheric and rising. Consequently, farmers in the Prairie Pothole Region are plowing up productive waterfowl nesting habitat to grow corn. Some are doing this after choosing not to re-enroll their land in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP ). Others are taking their land out of the CRP early. Corn prices are so high that it’s worth it to pay the penalty.
Taxpayer-funded programs like the CRP and Wetland Reserve Program (WRP ) are thin barrier islands that protect natural resources against the surging seas of the free market. A high spike in the corn market is showing us just how fragile that barrier is.
Instead, it would be more effective to conceive an entrepreneurial solution that can compete economically with market forces.
At least, it would be if American agriculture was truly a free market enterprise. Because the federal government has great influence over the supply, demand and price for agricultural products, America’s agricultural economy is largely insulated from free-market influences, and agricultural producers are largely insulated from free-market risks.
Congress has caused the corn market surge, so Congress is also responsible for the ripples that radiate from it, including loss of valuable wetlands in the Prairie Pothole Region. We’re talking primarily about effects on migratory waterfowl, which travel across state lines, but these changes also affect nonmigratory birds, such as ringneck pheasants, that thrive in CRP habitat.
Both situations involve interstate commerce, which the federal government regulates. Duck hunting, which can accurately be described as interstate commerce, supports vibrant economies in the states along the Mississippi Flyway, largely because of the revenue it generates from hunters who come here from other states. Pheasants also generate significant interstate commerce in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas and Iowa by attracting hunters from many other states.
By influencing one sector of the economy by artificially inflating the corn market, Congress will inevitably disrupt another sector of the economy that depends on hunting migratory and nonmigratory gamebirds, both of which depend on U. S. Department of Agriculture conservation programs. This will cause shortages of migratory and nonmigratory waterfowl, which will create a long-term recession, if not an outright depression, in their respective hunting markets. That, in turn, will depress state sales tax revenues, state hunting license revenues, federal and state duck stamp revenues, federal excise tax revenues on guns, ammunition, hunting equipment and gasoline, and finally, jobs for Arkansas citizens.
If Congress causes a shortage of ducks and pheasants, it should be responsible for mitigating associated market losses by either increasing funding for conservation programs or by providing other ways for landowners to conserve wildlife habitat.
It is an established fact that the public owns America’s wildlife. Because wildlife is publicly owned, all taxpayers are as much responsible for ensuring the integrity and abundance of our nation’s wildlife as we are for underwriting the development of alternative fuels.
In the present economic environment, farmers make more money planting corn than they do keeping their land in the CRP or WRP. Individual conservationists and conservation organizations can’t buy enough land for habitat or offer landowners enough money for permanent conservation easements. There is currently no alternative land use scenario that is more lucrative than producing a grain with an artificially inflated value.
Since interstate commerce and public resources are at risk, our lawmakers must be creative and proactive in finding other ways to make it economically attractive to farmers to manage their land for conservation. One obvious solution might be to amend the tax code to give farmers credit for losses they would sustain by keeping their land in the CRP instead of planting it in corn or other crops. Say, for example, a farmer makes a certain amount of money a year in CRP payments, but he could net seven times more by planting it in corn. He might be inclined to keep it in the CRP if he were awarded a tax credit for the difference. Or, perhaps, a tax credit for part of the difference and a nontaxable rebate for the rest.
These things are beyond the influence of the average citizen, so we trust our elected officials to conserve our treasured natural resources. To lose even a little of what we’ve gained since the early 1990 s is not acceptable.
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