commodity programs

Cover Crops: Insuring Against Disaster

April 7, 2014
Brian DeVore
agriculture, Food and Sustainable Agriculture, Loon Commons blog
2014 Farm Bill, climate change, commodity programs, cover crops, crop insurance, diversity, drought, Gabe Brown, Land Stewardship Project, mob grazing, RMA, SARE, soil erosion, soil health

Thanks to the recently passed 2014 Farm Bill, federally subsidized crop insurance is an even bigger player in determining what the landscape looks like. That’s troubling, considering that in recent years that…
Let’s Stop Treating Soil Conservation Like Dirt

April 15, 2011
Brian DeVore
Food and Sustainable Agriculture
commodity programs, conservation compliance, Conservation Stewardship Program, CSP, farmland conservation, Iowa Daily Erosion Project, NRCS, soil conservation, soil erosion, USDA

Here’s the bad news: it turns out the USDA’s estimates that soil erosion rates are under control across the Corn Belt—something we reported in this blog last June—are probably overly optimistic, according…