U.S. Farm Bills and Policy Reforms: Ideological Conflicts Over W ...

preservation, and air, water, and soil quality (Knutson et al., 1990). They often focus on set-aside lands such as the Conservation or Grasslands or Wetlands Reserve Programs, which pay farmers to set aside and not farm environmentally sensitive land. They tend to favor programs that can get the biggest conservation bang for their investment.¹⁰ Many of these programs tend to be additions to the farm bill rather than significant commodity reforms (Bonnen, Browne, & Schweikhardt, 1996). This is especially true of wildlife groups (e.g., Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever), many of whose members are also commodity crop farmers who benefit from subsidy provisions. Some conservation groups, however, (e.g., American Farmland Trust) do advocate more radical policy changes that include replacing commodity payments with farm revenue protection programs and green payments that reward farmers for stewardship rather than for per-bushel crop production (American Farmland Trust, 2007a).

During the 2008 farm bill debates, many environmental groups (e.g., Environmental Defense, the Nature Conservancy, Izaak Walton League of America) asked for increased funding as well as streamlined enrollment processes for conservation programs (Environmental Defense, 2007; Izaak Walton League of America, 2007; The Nature Conservancy, 2008). Others (e.g., National Wildlife Federation) focused on new conservation provisions for an emerging biofuels industry, supporting legislation that promoted the development of biofuels from perennial plant material such as switchgrass or trees, in addition to or instead of the corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel being produced already. These positions arose out of a desire to push the biofuels industry from large expanses of corn for ethanol production, with associated fertilizer, pesticide, and water use, to more environmentally friendly perennial cellulosic ethanol production with a higher energy balance and fewer pollution impacts (National Wildlife Federation, 2007; Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, 2006).¹¹

Rural Development Groups

Rural development groups argue that the fantastic productivity of industrial agriculture has been accompanied by several serious side effects