By Leah Douglas
(Reuters) – Two U.S. Senators are joining farm groups and other lawmakers in calling on the Department of Agriculture to allow farmers to plant conserved acres this spring in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Cynthia Lummis sent a letter to agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack on March 31 calling on USDA to allow farmers to plant acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) without penalty.
“Allowing crop production on CRP lands is a critical step for stabilizing food prices that have skyrocketed in recent months, and to help American growers fulfill the unmet global demand for grains that threatens the lives of tens of millions of people,” the Senators wrote.
USDA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aid groups have warned that global hunger will rise this year as a result of disruptions to the planting season in Ukraine, a major grain exporter. [L2N2VQ2D0]
Farm groups also called on Vilsack this month to allow farmers to plant on the more than 4 million acres of “prime farmland” currently enrolled in CRP. The program pays farmers to fallow acres under 10- or 15-year contracts. [L2N2VQ2R1]
Senator John Boozman, a Republican and ranking member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, also asked USDA in March to allow for CRP planting.
Some economists and farmers have expressed skepticism about the idea, as some CRP land is environmentally sensitive.
High costs and scarce availability of fertilizer and other materials has also muted farmer interest in planting more acres. In an annual survey of planting intentions, farmers said they would be planting just 214,000 acres (86,603 hectares) more than in 2021, a 0.07% increase.
The European Union has already moved to allow farmers to plant on fallow land in response to the war in Ukraine and is distributing aid to help them do so. [L5N2VQ584]
(Reporting by Leah Douglas; additional reporting by Christopher Walljasper; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
