by Mr. Hawking

Created on: November 02, 2008

At more than 420 pages long, the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, commonly known as the Farm Act or the Farm Bill, has been hailed as the single most influential "environmental" legislation passed in the 21st
century. Ironically, the bill acts by creating agricultural subsidies designed to extend the life of farmland, which made the Act the first real, funded, and active attempt to protect the environment from new forms of industry.

Many of the bill's groundbreaking environmental clauses seem like small footnotes. For example, it authorizes $200 million to add water to terminally dry lakes, creating sustainable ecosystems. Other clauses in the bill attempt to halt the erosion of topsoil by conserving surface water. Later on, it expands the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) by 2,275,000 acres until 2007, protecting key wetland wildlife habitats from destruction. Similarly, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) provides fairer and nationwide farming and industry regulations to deal with erosion and pollution. Participants can help the environment as well as their farms by planting trees and using safer farming practices. After the bill passed, the farming industry was more competitive and the environment was protected. The situation truly seemed win-win.

Other environmental benefits of the bill are more obvious:

1) The Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) provides the middle ground between private land and a national park. Landowners can retain limited use of their land while protecting it from environmental degradation for about a decade.

2) The Forest Legacy Program (FLP), similar to WHIP, even today protects millions of acres of forests donated by landowners and has spawned woodland industries across the country. Thanks to this program, miles of trails have remained clear for hikers and naturalists alike.

3) As a more conservative version of the FLP, the Forest Stewardship Program (FSP) teaches landowners how to use forests in an environmentally way. This program allows participants to use their land for profit without destroying it via industry.

Some of these actions might seem useless, but in reality the bill addresses more than agricultural problems. With the advent of new and improved technologies that threatened to destroy thousands of habitats, environmentalists in Congress needed to establish a precedent of increased government involvement in wildlife reserves. Their genius was to tack these regulations on a bill that everyone supported agricultural subsidies. This, then, is the true environmental benefit of the 2002 Farm Act the idea that commercial businesses could not destroy all of the country's natural beauty for a quick buck. Without the Act and the legislation that followed, countless species would be endangered and pollution and runoff would be rampant.

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