Predictions for upcoming seasons are laid out each year in the pages of The Old Farmer’s Almanac — charting the sun, moon, tides and past weather records to forecast the year ahead. With that in mind, we’ve done some calculations of our own and gauged the temperature of discussions surrounding farm and food policy for the 2012 Farm Bill.

Should the stars align, here are our predictions for topics to anticipate during the farm bill reauthorization process this spring.

Deficits and Cuts

The national deficit continues to loom overhead and the debate over the 2012 Farm Bill will be dominated like few others this century by deficit pressure. Every section of the legislation will be affected, but by how much we do not know. However, we do know that the deal to increase the debt ceiling means the farm bill will be cut by about $15 to $16 billion as a result of automatic sequestration. These cuts will most likely be the starting point—and not the end point—for final numbers.

Safeguarding the Environment

For conservation, 2012 will be a year when climate and environmental issues establish new trends and challenges. Dramatic weather events in 2011 created highs and lows in American agriculture, and coming years will be no exception. The discussion will focus on how to make conservation programs more efficient while equipping farmers with conservation tools and programs to meet environmental challenges and regulatory burdens.

With conservation programs having already contributed more than $2 billion to the nation’s deficit reduction through appropriations cuts, we think the farm bill debate this spring should center on promoting conservation funding without the threat of additional cuts. Conservation programs are too valuable to lose now—and for our future.

The Future of Farm Support Programs

Caught up in the budget belt-tightening are proposals to alter farm support, or subsidy, programs. For the first time in two decades, it is likely that direct payments will be eliminated. What will replace them is unclear, but the debate is currently focused on the appropriate role of government in helping farmers address risk.

We believe that  new safety net programs must protect farms from risks they can’t control, while also minimizing the programs’ influence on the economic and environmental behavior of farmers. The debate will be vigorous but we believe it will be critical to creating a farm support system that works effectively for both farmers and consumers.

Who Will be Farming and Stewarding the Land?

Now more than any time since the end of World War II, it’s important for the nation to have a serious discussion about the generational and gender shifts happening in American agriculture.

According to the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture, there are more than five times as many farmers at age 65 and older as there are 35 and younger. As the overall farm population ages, the influence of female landowners is predicted to rise.— 70 percent of farmland is expected to change hands in the next 20 years, with women potentially ending up  owning most of it. While we face the critical question of how land will be transitioned, at the same time we see the rise of young adults looking to start careers in agriculture but facing challenges securing land and succeeding in farming.

It will be difficult for farm policy leaders to ignore the changing demographics in agriculture. We think changes in land ownership, land stewardship and the engagement of young and beginning farmers in agriculture should be part of the discussion as Congress addresses programs for farmland protection, farm viability, and conservation.

Strengthening America’s Farm and Food System

Lawmakers will need to look systematically at what rural development policy is supposed to do to help today’s rural America.

The 2012 Farm Bill can be a catalyst to help rural America by finding ways to stimulate new market opportunities for agriculture and further support for local and regional food systems. Consumer demand for local food continues to rise, and farm policy can play a critical role in helping farmers provide it.

A Healthier Nation

Public health and nutrition, and the intersection with agriculture, is currently at the forefront of national interest. Amid on-going conversations about public health and chronic diseases is a focus on the availability of fresh, healthy food.

The connection between healthier diets and agricultural production is very real and easy to see. The demand for healthy food opens markets for agricultural products and potentially  helps keep farmers farming. Less clear, but no less important, is the role that public health demands may play in   local and regional food systems. The next farm bill presents the opportunity to explore public health while also creating market opportunities for farmers. We think 2012 will be the beginning of a long term trend of a new public health constituent group in the farm bill.

The forecast for the 2012 Farm Bill will take the direction of real forces shaping farm and food policy. As discussions around the 2012 Farm Bill get underway in Washington, we’ll be asking supporters of America’s farms and food to learn more, speak up and be heard.

Did you know that Connecticut was coined the “Provision State” by George Washington for the important role the state’s productive farms played in feeding the troops for the American Revolution?

Agriculture is growing and changing in Connecticut again, with a need to reclaim pastures and cropland while rebuilding agricultural infrastructure. To help meet this need and boost the job creating activities associated with agriculture, the Connecticut Department of Agriculture will soon launch a new Farmland Restoration Program. Department of Agriculture Commissioner Steven Reviczky credits Governor Malloy for promoting the restoration provision, noting in his travels the number of overgrown fields were there were once productive farms.

In many parts of the state, there is great competition for the best farmland and little opportunity for beginning farmers to access land. The new program will help farmers and landowners restore private, state, municipal and land trust lands back into agricultural production. Up to $20,000 per project will be available (with a match required) to implement a number of different restoration and conservation practices. The restoration plan will be developed in consultation with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and Connecticut Conservation District Specialists, with federal funds being leveraged for some of the conservation practices. Potential activities funded by the new program include the removal of invasive plants and brush, installation of fencing for reclamation areas to protect crops and wetlands, the renovation of farm ponds and the planting of streamside buffers.

The Farmland Restoration Program is expected to increase the acreage of farmland available to help new and existing farmers grow their businesses, thus creating jobs and providing fresh local products to meet growing consumer demands so the state can once again reclaim its name as “The Provision State.”

Details about the program and application materials are available at the Connecticut Department of Agriculture’s website, www.CTGrown.gov (click on “Programs and Services”), or by calling 860-713-2511.

Within the world of an increasingly localized food movement, we are ever more familiar with buying a peck of heirloom apples, serving up a pound of grass-fed beef, decorating with a bouquet of seasonal flowers and adding a pinch or a dash of our local agricultural products to any meal.

A number of groups, including Wholesome Wave, an organization we have partnered with in New England, promote food culture reform by helping communities recognize the importance of local food production to their ongoing happiness, health and well-being. But even with a surge of interest in “local food,” and with a number of organizations working with us to support agriculture and all its benefits, it still remains difficult for many people to make the connection between the food we eat and the land required to grow it.

So what is the value of farmland? What can one acre of land do for us?

Common Ground, a farm, high school and education center in New Haven, Connecticut, teaches young people leadership skills and environmental stewardship with a single acre of farmland. Each year, on that one acre of agricultural land:

• Students grow more than 5,000 pounds of produce, including 43varieties of vegetables

• Thirty chickens, five ducks, five turkeys, two pigs, two goats, one rabbit, one sheep and one farm cat are tended

• New jobs are created through two paid summer internships and school-year jobs for 50 teenagers

With its single acre, a plot 1/7^th the size of a Manhattan block, Common Ground shows us what farmland means for America.

As the students well know, a single acre can grow a lot of food. In terms of food production, an acre can be used to grow vegetables for 20 to 25 families for a 21-week season. With good soil, weather and conscientious management, one acre can produce 8,000 pounds of broccoli, 26,000 pounds of carrots or 30,000 pounds of field tomatoes in a growing season—or more than two gallons of milk per day.

The school illustrates, on a small scale, how an acre of farmland creates jobs. Students and interns take part in production, processing, distribution and waste management of the farm and its produce. In the state of Connecticut, home to Common Ground, agriculture represents $3.5 billion dollars of revenue a year and generates 20,000 jobs—about five jobs for every 100 acres of food production.

Of course, Common Ground’s primary focus is to produce the fruits of great education: successful students. For four years straight, the test scores at Common Ground have shown gains, including the largest gains of any Connecticut high school in 2010. Their graduation rates and college attendance also exceed the state average. As one school employee explained, “We think the opportunities for active, authentic learning produced by our 20-acre site”—including the one acre they have in production—are “a critical part” of the students’ learning. Their community environmental programs have grown beyond their own students to reach more than 8,000 students within the immediate community.

And the hands-on learning of their students includes lessons about the role that farmland plays in safeguarding our environment. An acre of land provides countless ecosystem benefits that help to safeguard clean water and breathable air and could not be reproduced or substituted by technology. These benefits include water filtration, flood reduction and carbon sequestration. Farmland also provides nesting habitat for many species of birds and wildlife.

Connecticut and the Northeast remains a region of small farms, where each acre of farmland is caught in a tug-of-war between farming and other uses—from housing developments to parking lots. With growing demands to pave over farmland, it is simply hard to picture just what we mean by an acre of farmland and perhaps even more importantly, what an acre of farmland means to us. The rolling vistas of farmland and barns, silos and pasture connect our present with the agricultural past that built our nation. Even today, they represent true production and productivity and serve to link us together in our communities.

Share your story in the comments below: “Why is an acre of farmland important to you?”

An earlier version of this piece was originally featured in the Huffington Post.

About the Author: Leah Mayor is the Working Lands Alliance Project Director and New England Project Manager at American Farmland Trust where she focuses on policy, outreach, and education about the importance of farmland protection in Connecticut and the Northeast. Mayor is the founder and principal of Taking Root, and also blogs about food and agricultural systems for a number of online platforms, including the Huffington Post.

Growing concerns about access to locally grown foods, public health issues and the conservation of natural resources recently converged in New York City at this year’s TEDx Manhattan. Among a diverse group including farmers, chefs, educators, environmentalists and local food advocates, I joined in for a day of idea sharing around the concept of “Changing the Way We Eat.”

The "edible" TEDx logo. (Photo/TEDx Manhattan)

The backdrop of the Manhattan skyline was a surprisingly fitting frame for a discussion about farms and food. TEDx Manhattan was a discussion of ideas rooted in the value of connections between rural and urban people—whether young or old, foodies or environmentalists—and about finding better ways to protect farms and food across the country.

For Patty Cantrell, a journalist working to make the business case for local and regional food, new roads to new markets are not paved in asphalt. Rather, the creation of market opportunities for local food products starts with connecting people. “It’s about making our way back to each other,” she explained, “and moving forward as a result.” Cantrell pointed to the Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Fair Food Matters as a model for empowering communities through food and for connecting people with the land that produces it.

The idea of community was a bit different for Fred Kirschenmann. A farmer in south central North Dakota who serves as both a Distinguished Fellow at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and as president of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Kirschenmann appealed to the value of the land as a vital piece in the discussion about our food. “Soil is a vibrant, living community. A community of life,” he remarked. Using examples from challenging weather events of the past year, he warned of the pressures of environmental changes on soil that is continually slipping away.

Enjoying a local food lunch with presenter Gary Oppenheimer, founder of AmpleHarvest.org (Photo/TEDx Manhattan)

Whether discussing how to safeguard soil quality to discovering new ways to provide healthier food options in schools, an undertone of the day was the critical need to think about the future today.  Michelle Hughes, Director of GrowNYC’s New Farmer Development Project, connected the rapid loss of farmland to development with the need to cultivate new farmers. The New Farmer Development Project works with immigrant families in New York City to provide access to farmland and to assistance in finding local market opportunities. As Hughes explained, connecting the new farmers to land is making a positive impact on immigrant families and communities while keeping farmland viable and healthy.

The farm and food innovators throughout the audience were an energized community in themselves. I was even able to catch up with Cara Rosaen of Real Time Farms after her impassioned talk on empowering eaters and farmers. In the end, I left with a hopeful feeling. The lesson of the day: When it comes to the health of our lands, access to healthy food, and a viable future for farms, ideas are worth creating, developing and believing in as part of a community invested in a healthy future for us all.

This has been an exceptionally busy year for American Farmland Trust in the Pacific Northwest. It has been a year full of changes: our longtime regional director, Don Stuart, retired at the end of 2010 but has continued to work closely with our office. It has been a year full of building and strengthening relationships as our alliances with a wide-range of agricultural, local food and smart growth organizations have flourished through collaborative efforts surrounding our shared goals.

The Pacific Northwest is home to some of the America’s most fertile and productive farmland. Farms and ranches in Washington, Oregon and Idaho reach consumers in the Northwest and throughout the nation with their abundance of food and other agricultural products, even as they face pressures from sprawling development. Here are just a few ways we have been working to protect farmland, safeguard the environment and provide fresh, healthy food throughout the region.

The Pioneers in Conservation Program: Helping Farmers Safeguard Salmon Habitat

Thanks to a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, we revived the Pioneers in Conservation program and will offer small grants to farmers for salmon habitat restoration projects along rivers and wetlands. American Farmland Trust offered a similar program from 2007 to 2009, which was widely supported by the environmental and farm communities and protected salmon while supporting farm businesses. We expect to announce the first grants in early 2012.

Making Farmland Protection Programs More Effective

We finished a study of farmland protection programs in the 12 counties surrounding Puget Sound. The county-by-county assessment covered zoning, land use regulations, tax relief, land protection tools and economic development programs. Skagit, King and Whatcom counties were recognized as having the best programs for saving important farm and ranch land. We will follow up our county study with a program for counties wishing to improve their farmland protection programs.

Can the Puget Sound Feed Itself?

We also completed the first phase of a foodshed study of the Puget Sound region focusing on what foods are produced and consumed within a 100-mile radius of downtown Seattle. With help from graduate students at the University of Washington, our next step is to identify how food travels from farmers to consumers, how much farmland is needed to produce local food for the area and how we can better promote locally supplied food.

Identifying the Most Threatened Farm and Ranch Landscapes

Which working landscapes in the Pacific Northwest are most threatened by suburban sprawl, second-home development, rural estates, competition for water and other issues? We are laying the groundwork and creating partnerships in Oregon, Idaho and western Montana to roll out a program that helps identify and protect the most endangered farm landscapes in those states.

A Look Ahead

We are prepared for another strong year in 2012. Along with our partners, we will be following up with our work to address sprawling development in the region, provide healthy food locally, and safeguard environmental resources such as clean water.

Thank you for your help, support and encouragement. We could not do our work without you.

About the author: Dennis Canty is the Pacific Northwest Director for American Farmland Trust. Before joining AFT, Canty founded Evergreen Funding Consultants in 2001, a Seattle firm that focuses on funding strategies for environmental projects.

For many of us, this year will be remembered for its weather. The January blizzard and record winter snowfalls. The mind-boggling flooding that followed Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. The wild Halloween snowstorm and its ensuing power losses. We were reminded that things we take for granted—like the rich productive farmland soils that have been farmed for centuries along the Deerfield River in Massachusetts—can disappear in a day down a river. We were reminded, too, of how important it is to have effective programs and policies in place to help farmers manage the inherent risk in farming so they can stay profitable and remain stewards of our vital working landscape.

This year, we worked with a wide variety of partners in the region to promote the critical importance of farms and farmland to New England’s economy, environment, public health, community character and livability. Here are a few highlights from our work across the region:

Creating a Vision for Rhode Island Farms and Food

With the Rhode Island Agricultural Partnership, we presented a new strategic plan for the state’s farms to Governor Lincoln Chaffee and state lawmakers at Rhode Island’s Agriculture Day in May. The new five-year plan, A Vision for Rhode Island Agriculture—the culmination of a year’s outreach to Rhode Island’s diverse agricultural community—will guide consumers and officials in building a stronger and more resilient food system and farm economy.

Connecting Farmers with Land in Connecticut

Faced with some of the highest farm real estate values in the country, farmers in Connecticut—especially those just beginning—often struggle to find productive and affordable farmland. Farmland ConneCTions: A Guide for Connecticut Towns, Land Trusts, and Institutions Using or Leasing Farmland, published by American Farmland Trust and the University of Connecticut, helps towns, institutions and land trusts navigate the process of leasing land to farmers or managing it for agricultural use.

Working Lands Alliance Secures Funding for Farmland Protection

With new governors in four of the six New England states, we worked to educate incoming administrations about the importance of state and federal funding for farmland protection, including—through the Working Lands Alliance—Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy. We were thrilled when Gov. Malloy and state lawmakers enacted a two-year bond package with $20 million for farmland protection, allowing continued progress toward the state’s goal of protecting 130,000 acres.

Cultivating Local Farms in Maine

In partnership with Maine Farmland Trust and the Mainewatch Institute, we produced a new guide to give communities practical ways to support local farms and keep farmland in farming. Cultivating Maine’s Agricultural Future provides examples of actions local officials and residents can take to protect farmland and make their towns more farm-friendly. Please contact Peggy McCabe in our New England Office at pmccabe@farmland.org for a free printed copy of the guide.

Scaling Up the Region’s Institutional Markets

New England’s 14 million consumers are demanding more locally grown foods, and the region’s institutions—including public and private schools, universities and hospitals—are looking for ways to meet that demand. This year, we were excited to help launch a new effort, the Farm to Institution in New England (FINE) project, taking a region-wide approach to expanding processing capacity, identifying distribution channels and best practices, and increasing institutional procurement of New England-grown foods.

A Look Ahead

Agriculture is rooted in New England’s history and is a critical force in guiding the region’s future. As we look to 2012, we will continue to work to support thriving farms throughout New England while improving access to healthy foods and growing the resiliency of our region’s farm and food system.

About the Author: Cris Coffin is the New England Director for American Farmland Trust, where she leads efforts to promote farmland protection, farm viability and conservation practices in New England through research, outreach, advocacy and policy development at the local, state and national level.

At year’s end, we often reflect on the many challenges and successes of the past year. In New York, we are thankful for the tremendous impact that farmers, citizens and others have made to support local farming and the production of local food.

Across New York state, a movement is forming. People are coming together who care about jobs and our farm and food economy. They want to make it possible for more New Yorkers to have fresh fruits, vegetables milk and other products grown on local farms. And, New Yorkers are increasingly conscious that we need to stop losing farms to residential and commercial development. Here are a few examples of our work in 2011 as part of this growing No Farms No Food® movement:

Transitioning Farms to the Next Generation of Farmers

Roughly 30 percent of New York’s farmers are over the age of 65—with five times more farmers over the age of 65 than under 35. The transition of farms from one generation to the next—if all doesn’t go smoothly—represents a time of risk when farms are susceptible to being paved over for development. But that period of transition also offers hope for a younger generation looking to farm. In November and December, we focused a spotlight on these issues with forums in the Hudson Valley and Western New York. These events brought together farmers, land trusts, agricultural educators and others to identify the greatest needs and opportunities for aiding senior generations with farm transfer planning and assisting younger generations with securing productive farmland.

Securing Funds to Save Farmland

We organized our second No Farms No Food® Rally at the State Capitol on March 30, bringing together more than 150 New Yorkers and 70 organizations. Together, we met with more than 100 state legislators in support of critical funding needed to protect farmland from development, create farm and food jobs and increase the availability of local foods for all New Yorkers. With this support, Governor Cuomo and state legislators passed the first budget increase for farmland protection in three years and restored funding for a series of farm programs that were on the verge of being eliminated.

Working with Communities to Support Local Farms and Stop the Loss of Farmland

In 2011, we released Planning for Agriculture in New York: A Toolkit for Towns and Counties to help planners, citizens and local officials take proactive steps to keep farms thriving in their communities. The new guide highlights 80 communities that have taken action through agricultural economic development programs, food and public policies, zoning and land use planning, purchase of development rights, public education and more. After releasing the new guide, we held a six-session webinar series highlighting chapters of the new publication that attracted almost 300 people from New York and other states.

Helping Farmers Protect Clean Water Across New York

For more than two decades, American Farmland Trust has worked with farmers to continue their legacy of environmental stewardship in New York. In 2011, we worked with farmers, landowners, conservation professionals and others to develop the Owasco Lake Agricultural Conservation Blueprint to help farmers enhance water quality in the lake while ensuring thriving farms. In addition, we kicked off a significant project in partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County that will help sweet corn growers alter their fertilizer practices in order to reduce pollution in Long Island Sound.

A Look Ahead

The urgency for American Farmland Trust’s work in New York has never been greater.  Our society needs the jobs that will come from a stronger farm and food system. At the same time, the urgent need for protection of natural resources, including soil and water, is tremendous. In the year ahead, we hope that you will join the movement in responding to these challenges. Each of us can play a role, whether by shopping at a farmers market, serving on a town planning board or protecting your own farmland. All of these steps matter. Remember, “No Farms, No Food!”

About the Author:

Producing one-eighth of all U.S. food and fiber—more than 300 different crops—on just three percent of its farmland, California is the nation’s biggest agricultural producer. It is also the most populous and fastest growing state. This combination presents considerable challenges for farms and farmland.

This year, we worked with partners throughout the state to make significant progress on each of the groundbreaking initiatives we’ve launched to address the challenges facing farms in California. To us, the challenges represent opportunities to advance our mission of saving farmland, promoting environmentally friendly farming practices and maintaining the economic viability of agriculture. Here is an update on how our strategy is working.

Saving  San Joaquin Valley Farmland

We’re helping to guide the first regional planning process in the San Joaquin Valley, California’s most important agricultural area. The Blueprint that emerged this year will save more than 120,000 acres of farmland by reducing urban sprawl. But to accomplish this, it must be incorporated into the land use plans of the region’s local governments, which is now our focus in the valley. At the same time, we have persuaded regional officials to produce a complementary “greenprint” that will inventory agricultural and natural resources and recommend strategies for their conservation and management.

San Francisco Bay Area Foodshed

The nine-county San Francisco Bay Area is losing about one percent of its remaining farmland every year as agriculture in the region struggles to compete—not only with development but also against farmers and ranchers in other areas of California who face lower costs and fewer urban headaches. To halt this trend, American Farmland Trust and partner organizations like the Greenbelt Alliance are promoting a regional agricultural economic development strategy to help farmers and ranchers capitalize on the market advantage they enjoy because of the region’s strong interest in locally grown food.

Environmental Stewardship

Our on-the-ground demonstration projects are helping convince growers that conservation practices do not have to reduce yields and profits. Our Nutrient BMP Challenge® program helped farmers growing feed for dairy cows adopt new environmentally friendly farming practices on 2,400 acres in the San Joaquin Valley. We are also beginning a new project in partnership with the Campbell Soup Company to help tomato producers reduce fertilizer and conserve water. And we are holding focus groups with farmers across the state to identify other obstacles keeping farmers from adopting practices that safeguard the environment.

California Agricultural Vision

One of the most significant things we have ever done in California is to orchestrate a process that led to the adoption by the State Board of Food & Agriculture of a set of strategies to address the major challenges facing California agriculture, among them water, regulations, workforce, invasive species and land use. This year, we have been working with leaders from agriculture, the environmental community and other interest groups to implement California Agricultural Vision, as the plan is called. Foremost among our priorities is an assessment of agriculture’s future land and water needs in light of a growing population, climate change and other factors likely to influence supply and demand for food, which we are pursuing in partnership with researchers at the University of California.

A Look Ahead

While continuing to make progress on the initiatives mentioned here, we will have to address new threats to farmland in the coming year. Among them is a high-speed rail system that—without good land use planning—threatens to encourage more urban sprawl. We also face hundreds of proposals to build industrial-scale solar energy facilities—you guessed it—on California’s irreplaceable farmland.

About the Author: Edward Thompson, Jr., California Director at American Farmland Trust has been with the organization since it was founded 30 years ago, serving in multiple positions and helping initiate a wide variety of projects.

This post was originally featured on AgriPulse.com as part of an on-going series of opinion pieces.

We’re a little over a week past the spectacular and unfortunate demise of the Super Committee. As a result, we failed to pass a 2012 Farm Bill as part of that process.

The natural question is “What’s next?”

We must pass a farm bill in 2012 because our nation’s farmers and ranchers need and deserve a measure of certainty. Farmers need a safety net that works effectively, and they need access to tools that help them be good stewards of our natural resources. And finally, those less fortunate during these economic times deserve a helping hand so they don’t go hungry, while our nation as a whole needs the security effective food policies and programs bring.

Adding to the urgent need for action is our nation’s long-term fiscal concerns that beg for action and the presidential election just around the corner that will complicate the policy process further if we do not move forward expeditiously.

I am thus heartened by the recent statements of Senator Debbie Stabenow, Chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, who said that the committee will proceed with farm bill mark-up in January and February. This would put the process back on the original timetable that Sen. Stabenow and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Rep. Lucas outlined months ago.

We believe a good starting point for this work is that which has been done by the leadership of the Agriculture Committees as part of the Super Committee process. While the text of the leadership’s proposal has not been made public, many details have leaked to the press, and more has been learned in conversations with the committee leadership and their staff.

Conservation

From what has been reported, it appears that the leadership proposal would cut conservation title funding by 10 percent. Given the challenges we face, these cuts are disappointing. But given the size of our nation’s fiscal challenges, some measure of cuts to all agriculture programs are expected.

As we look to finish the farm bill process, it seems to me we have reached the point where all of us must say, “Enough, we cannot cut conservation further!”

While any cut to the budget is painful, many of the program changes suggested by the leadership were positive. For example, it appears that a method of focusing our conservation priorities on areas of highest need has been developed. This is real progress.

The leadership has streamlined several conservation programs—again a positive move, since farmers should be able to access and use programs more efficiently.

Further, the leadership appears to have made a robust commitment to agricultural working lands by funding and improving the effectiveness of a new agricultural land easement program, improving the Conservation Stewardship Program and maintaining an effective and robust Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

This week, the Food and Agriculture Organization issued a status report on land and water resources, noting the challenge ahead: to increase agricultural production by 70 percent in coming years at a time when these resources will be put under increasing and extreme strain.

Adding to that burden, we’ve lost over 23 million acres of farm and ranch land in recent decades here in the United States. This underscores the absolute importance of the conservation title in the farm bill because of its role in supporting the health of our soils, water, air, wildlife habitat and more.

As we see more specific details of the leadership plan, improvements in the conservation title may be needed, but it appears they have put us in a good starting position.

The Safety Net

Unlike conservation, details that have emerged on the safety net cause great concern. As I have written on many occasions, the modern safety net must meet several principles:

• Producers must show they have suffered a real loss before they receive a payment.
• The new safety net should be revenue-based and adjust to volatile and dynamic global markets.
• The new program should help farmers manage long-term market risks in concert with, not duplicating, crop insurance that protects against individual farm risks within a crop year.
• Finally, we need to assure that government programs do not create artificial incentives to farm on land that may have detrimental environmental impacts. A modern farm safety net should seek to minimize such distortion or have systems in place to mitigate such impacts.

News accounts of proposals that would institute higher target prices would send agriculture in the wrong direction. We must not go back to farmers farming the government program.

Reports of an overly-generous, farm-level shallow-loss program is also concerning, as it does not acknowledge the distortion such programs have on planting and on conservation decisions. As the farm bill moves forward, we must remove, reduce and mitigate these distortions.

For decades, we have acknowledged that government payments cause distortion. As a result, we have asked farmers to maintain the minimum conservation plans through conservation compliance. As our safety net evolves, we have to insure that these conservation standards remain in place and evolve with it.

I am disappointed that the leadership proposal did not appear to include the reattachment of conservation compliance to crop insurance subsidies, along with a sod-saver provision.

These are important provisions in agriculture’s contract with the public that ensures economic stability in agriculture while protecting the resources that sustain our food supply and so much more.

Healthy Food and Food Systems

Changes to address local foods and nutrition are encouraging. The leadership’s proposal acknowledges with funding and improved programs the burgeoning public interest in healthy, locally produced food.

Some of these include funding for the Value Added Producer Grant program and creating a new Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program. These measures can also provide exciting new market opportunities for farmers and ranchers.

It is also notable that the leadership proposal maintained efforts to improve the dietary health of the 45 million of our neighbors who currently are food insecure and receive nutrition assistance by funding efforts like SNAP Education and the SNACK program.

The Clock Is Ticking.

The clock is ticking. Now that the Super Committee demise and Thanksgiving turkey are but memories, it is time to gear up for the opportunity that lies ahead early in the New Year.

Everyone touched by the farm bill must immediately analyze the leadership’s initial proposal and move quickly out of the starting gate. So much is at stake. Time is fleeting.

About the Author: Jon Scholl is President of American Farmland Trust. Prior to AFT, he served as Counselor to the Administrator for Agriculture Policy at the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Jon and his

Young farmers look to historic New Jersey crop: the cranberry

New Jersey cranberries are making a comeback among a young generation of farmers. Rutgers University is trying to increase this growth and other farm trends in the state through its revised agricultural program. The university will also be educating consumers on the value of locally grown produce.

Conservations program faces hurdle

In Minnesota, farmers enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program—a farm bill program that protects environmentally sensitive land—are considering returning protected land to production due to high crop prices. Nearly 10 million acres of Conservation Reserve Program contracts are expiring in the next few years. Find out more about the Conservation Reserve Program [PDF].

Christmas trees are looking good this year

Despite a rough hot summer in Oklahoma, Christmas tree sales are off to a good start. Why not try to get your Christmas tree from a local farm this year?

Maryland increases farmland protection

The state of Maryland has recently secured four easements, totaling 563 acres of farmland in various counties across the state. This brings the amount of farmland protected through the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation to 286,660 acres. In conjunction with both state and county programs, Maryland has protected a total of nearly 558,914 acres.

Washington state secures additional agricultural preservation

The North Olympic Land Trust in Washington State has officially preserved the 61-acre Finn Hall Farm for perpetuity.

Still time to register for the Virginia Food Security Summit!

The second annual Virginia Food Security Summit is being held December 5 and 6 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Speakers include Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan, with topics ranging from innovative food distribution to Virginia’s farm-to-table initiative.

The state of the world’s land and water resources for food and agriculture

The Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations put out a new report on the state of the World’s Land and Water Resources for Food and Agriculture earlier this week.