Plan B Forum

How about buying farmland not to farm? The federal government has a program that pays farmers not to cultivate. The idea is to keep land from being plowed and sequester the carbon. I’m thinking about suggesting a friend buy some land and getting into this. He needs to do something with his money before it’s worthless, and Biden steals it all. Does anyone here know anything about this program? It is called the Conservation Reserve Program. I don‘t know a lot about this program, but I have been led to believe he could get $120 a year per acre if he Planted the land in hardwood trees. And he could get seedlings free from the state. OK, now it’s your turn. What is wrong with this idea?

What is wrong with this idea?

What you've described is unclear. You wrote that the government pays farmers not to cultivate and then you said that planting hardwood trees would bring in $120.00/yr. A person interested in something like that would be buying a job that would likely take a few years to create any income and the amount of net income in relation to the amount paid for the land is an unknown.

Google is your friend, assuming that the University of East Butt Crack taught you how to read.

Conservation Reserve Program:

CRP is a land conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA). In exchange for a yearly rental payment, farmers enrolled in the program agree to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality. Contracts for land enrolled in CRP are from 10 to15 years in length. The long-term goal of the program is to re-establish valuable land cover to help improve water quality, prevent soil erosion, and reduce loss of wildlife habitat.

Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1985, CRP is one of the largest private-lands conservation program in the United States. Thanks to voluntary participation by farmers and landowners, CRP has improved water quality, reduced soil erosion, and increased habitat for endangered and threatened species.

Producers interested in enrolling in CRP should contact the FSA office at their local USDA Service Center. The Continuous CRP Signup is ongoing.

2021 Enrollment

Producers and landowners enrolled 5.3 million acres through CRP signups, including nearly 2.6 million in the Grassland signup, nearly 1.9 million acres for the General signup, and 902,000 acres for the Continuous signup (as of September 10, 2021). This year’s signup surpassed USDA’s 4 million-acre goal.

For Grassland CRP, producers and landowners submitted offers for nearly 4 million acres, the highest in the signup’s history. Read more in our September 10, 2021 news release.

Meanwhile, Continuous CRP was highly successful in large part because of a recommitment to incentives and partnerships, including the expansion of the Clean Lakes, Estuaries, and Rives Initiative 30-year (CLEAR30) from two regions to nationwide as well as moving State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE) practices from the General to the Continuous signup. Read more in our August 23, 2021 news release.

Improvements to CRP

In 2021, FSA introduced higher payment rates, new incentives, and a more targeted focus on CRP’s role in climate change mitigation. To learn more about updates to CRP, read our “What’s New with CRP” fact sheet or our April 21, 2021 news release.

CRP and Climate Mitigation

Through the CRP Climate Change Mitigation Assessment Initiative, FSA will further quantify program benefits to better target CRP toward climate outcomes and improve existing models and conservation planning tools.

In October 2021, USDA awarded a total of $10 million to three partners that will monitor and measure how key CRP practices impact soil carbon. These practices include perennial grasses, tree plantings and wetlands.

To learn more, read the October 12, 2021 news release, May 25, 2021 news release or visit our page on CRP Monitoring, Assessment and Evaluation projects.

The reclaimed farmland would have to be pretty marginal for someone to agree to $120 per acre, less the cost of planting. And the cost to the government would be considerably less when savings on the myriad of other agricultural subsidies are factored in. Sounds like a win-win.

Joe Guy wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 13, 2021 4:35 am

What is wrong with this idea?

What you've described is unclear. You wrote that the government pays farmers not to cultivate and then you said that planting hardwood trees would bring in $120.00/yr. A person interested in something like that would be buying a job that would likely take a few years to create any income and the amount of net income in relation to the amount paid for the land is an unknown.

I should have said plowed. As long as the Surface is not broken, the carbon is trapped in the soil. Planting trees is different than planting crops. The ground is not plowed. To plant a tree seedling, one uses a tool that looks something like an ax head on a rod. The device is pushed into the soil like a shovel. The ground is forced apart, and the seedling is placed in the gap, and then the soil is forced back together with a Boot hill. Seedlings have to be planted in the winter in wet ground.


The money is being eaten by inflation anyway; something has to be done with it. Do you have a better option for an inflation hedge?

liberty wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 13, 2021 4:14 am

How about buying farmland not to farm? The federal government has a program that pays farmers not to cultivate. The idea is to keep land from being plowed and sequester the carbon. I’m thinking about suggesting a friend buy some land and getting into this. He needs to do something with his money before it’s worthless, and Biden steals it all. Does anyone here know anything about this program? It is called the Conservation Reserve Program. I don‘t know a lot about this program, but I have been led to believe he could get $120 a year per acre if he Planted the land in hardwood trees. And he could get seedlings free from the state. OK, now it’s your turn. What is wrong with this idea?

There are so many things out of whack with this concept, I don't know where to start.

I have been led to believe he could get $120 a year per acre if he Planted the land in hardwood trees.

Q: Just where is this money supposed to come from?
A: From the Conservation Reserve Program — a land conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA), which is a US Department of Agriculture agency that was formed by merging the farm loan portfolio and staff of the Farmers Home Administration and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.   A government bureaucracy, in other words, which means the money is a government hand-out.   And since when were you EVER in favor of more government involvement in your life?

And he could get seedlings free from the state.

Again, another government hand-out — which I thought was totally and completely against your less-government/pro-Tea Party stance.   Or are you only against government handouts when someone other than ignorant red-necked white guys like you are benefiting from them?

I’m thinking about suggesting a friend buy some land and getting into this. He needs to do something with his money before it’s worthless, and Biden steals it all. Does anyone here know anything about this program?

Uhhh...  you're aware that those payments to your friend will not be in bitcoin or gold dust, but with more of that same kind of money you insist will become worthless?   And just as an aside, why would Biden want to steal it — or Trump and the Repugnicunts want people to give it to them — if it's going to become worthless anyway?

Then you need to look at what happens when it comes time to go to the grocery store if farmland is turned into forests.   Less cropland means less crops means less food means higher prices for the commodities that are produced.   While this might benefit those who choose to continue growing crops, it'll mean larger bills for EVERYONE at the grocery store, butcher shop, restaurant, and anywhere else you go to get something to eat.  And of course, those farmers who DO sell off their land to speculators like your friend (because that's what you are in effect urging him to do — buy the land and hold onto it until he can sell it at a profit to some developer for housing, commercial use, or some huge commercial corporate megafarm who will cut down the trees and turn the land into something that will make rich people even richer — will need to do something to support themselves and their families... which means moving off the land and to the cities to become one more part of the modern commercial rat-race.   That is, IF they have marketable skills, and can find a job that pays a livable wage, and can find affordable housing, and ... the list goes on.

My take on this is that it is one more government program that, while it sounds good on the surface, will end up only working in favor of the huge corporate farming operations that can afford to permit, say, 5 percent of their total cropland to lie fallow while the other 95 percent remains in production.

-"BB"-

Bicycle Bill wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 13, 2021 5:40 am

liberty wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 13, 2021 4:14 am

How about buying farmland not to farm? The federal government has a program that pays farmers not to cultivate. The idea is to keep land from being plowed and sequester the carbon. I’m thinking about suggesting a friend buy some land and getting into this. He needs to do something with his money before it’s worthless, and Biden steals it all. Does anyone here know anything about this program? It is called the Conservation Reserve Program. I don‘t know a lot about this program, but I have been led to believe he could get $120 a year per acre if he Planted the land in hardwood trees. And he could get seedlings free from the state. OK, now it’s your turn. What is wrong with this idea?

There are so many things out of whack with this concept, I don't know where to start.

I have been led to believe he could get $120 a year per acre if he Planted the land in hardwood trees.

Q: Just where is this money supposed to come from?

A: From the Conservation Reserve Program — a land conservation program administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA), which is a US Department of Agriculture agency that was formed by merging the farm loan portfolio and staff of the Farmers Home Administration and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service.   A government bureaucracy, in other words, which means the money is a government hand-out.   And since when were you EVER in favor of more government involvement in your life?

And he could get seedlings free from the state.

Again, another government hand-out — which I thought was totally and completely against your less-government/pro-Tea Party stance.   Or are you only against government handouts when someone other than ignorant red-necked white guys like you are benefiting from them?



-"BB"-

You appear to have me confused with somebody else; Rush Limbaugh, perhaps. Well, I'm not him for one thing he was more intelligent than me, but I'm better looking. And for another, I'm not a Republican. I am a redneck, but I don't dip, chew or smoke tobacco, and I don't drink beer and hate football, baseball and basketball, and any other sports. I would watch sports games if someone paid me, but it had to be pretty good pay. Am I am not even a conservative; I'm a moderate; I tend to be allied with Republicans more than I do Democrats because Republicans are on the side of liberty more than my party. I'm not opposed to government programs As long as they serve legitimate government purposes and are within the realm of feasibility. There are some things that only government can do. I'm not even opposed to socialism; I believe in social security, which is a socialist program. I oppose programs that intrude into people's lives, like mandatory auto insurance.

Then don't drive a car.

At its inception, I don't recall carbon sequestration being any part of the CRP discussion. I don't think it was a thing. I remember LOTS of people being upset because it simply paid farmers not to farm. It was supposed to help keep crop prices high. I don't think it helped very much as crop prices have never done a good job of keeping up with inflation. A bushel of wheat now brings just over $8. It broke $5 when I was in college about 50 years ago, and has been all over the map since. A similar program paid many dairy farmers to sell their herds as low grade beef to keep dairy prices high.

A couple hundred years ago, massive herds of buffalo roamed all over the plains. Someone even wrote a song about it. Between the buffalo trampling the grass and range fires which could only burn out when they ran out of fuel, trees simply didn't grow.

I know of several farms that have been given over to CRP. They have become Chinese elm and red cedar forests. That was predicted by a retired head of State of Kansas' forestry department. Yes there is a Kansas forestry department. Those trees were planted by birds and the wind. No human hand needed, or paid for the task.

Carbon sequestration was not part of the original design of CRP, but has been added to it in recent changes.

Paying to leave marginally productive farmland fallow has been part of U.S. agricultural policy, in one form or another, since the New Deal. If done properly, the cost should be offset by savings in income stabilization and crop insurance payments. But that would require a overall rational agricultural policy framework, which, for example, would not permit those offsets to evaporate by permitting other lands converted to marginal agricultural use to take advantage of stabilization and insurance programs. Unfortunately too many components of agricultural policy work at cross purposes.