00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods. Present it by First Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. 00:00:18 Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, we're joined by Wit Fossburg and Aaron Field from TRCP to discuss the most impactful conservation bill of the year and how we can help get it pasted. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light, and this week on the show, as you might expect, we are continuing our Conservation Month series and our topic today is a very specific one. We're going to discuss one specific piece of legislation, the biggest conservation bill actually of the entire year, and if drafted and passed in the way that our guests today believe that it should be, this bill is going to direct billions that's billions, with a B billions of dollars every year to conservation programs that will get better habitat on the ground for wildlife. It's going to help pay for programs that open up millions of private acres to public hunting access, and so so much more. This bill is the twenty twenty three Farm Bill. It's a title that at first glance, you know, maybe doesn't suggest great things for wildlife in wild places. But by the end of today's episode, I promise you will understand just how important the Farm Bill is to hunting, fishing, and conservation, and you'll understand the specific details in the twenty twenty three edition that we hunters need to understand and advocate for. So our guests today to help tackle all this. Both come from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and they are with Fossberg, the President and CEO of the TRCP, and Aaron Field, the director of Private Lands Conservation. So today is going to be very action oriented. 00:02:22 Speaker 1: You know. 00:02:22 Speaker 2: Compare this back to our first episode in the series, which was high level kind of philosophy. You know, what's going on with wildlife all across the world, why are things like this happening? What does that mean for us? And then last week in our second episode, we had this deep dive into these specific trends and issues impacting just white tilt deer, and now today We're going to get even more nitty gritty by talking about this one specific law that could make a very real, very meaningful difference for wildlife, wild places, hunting, fishing, and all that kind of stuff. So we're going to get some very concrete action items today to help make this happen. It's going to be a roadmap for you know, what we need to understand about the twenty twenty three farm bell and what we can actually do to make sure the best version possible is past. Something's going to help you and your deer hunting and you're you know, hunting properties and all the other things that kind of ripple out from that. That's the plan today. But before that, I do want to point out that if you're listening to this on launch day or somewhere around it, you know, April twentieth of twenty twenty three or so, you should know that this coming Saturday, April twenty second is Earth Day. And I don't know what your take is on Earth Day. I don't know. It was something that I was always aware of growing up. I don't know if it was something that I always quote unquote celebrated or participated in, but it was something that I think was always a good excuse to, you know, talk about some kind of environmental cause, go out and pick up some trash or something during school. That's kind of what Earth Day meant to me, maybe as a kid growing up, but now as an adult, as someone who you know, is pretty active and interested in this whole conservation sphere of stuff in the world. I guess the more I think about Earth Day, the more I think about this being an event or a holiday, or something that we hunters and anglers can claim as our own. This doesn't have to be something that's just you know, talked about and participated in by folks driving a Prius in San Francisco. This could be something that me driving a Ram fifteen hundred that likes to hunt and fish. I can participate in Earth Day, and I should be excited about it just as much as anyone else, because I think history would indicate. I think it backs up the claim that hunters and anglers are the original conservationists, some of the original most impactful environmentalists. This is our day just as much as anyone else's. And with that being said, you know, I personally, at least I am excited to get out there this Saturday and get involved. We have our second event of our Working for Wildlife Tour coming up Saturday, April twenty second, twenty twenty three, up in Michigan. So if you live in my home state of Michigan, I would love to see you up in the northern part of the MIT. We are going to be building small game habitat, creating brush piles, maintaining wildlife openings, doing some really cool stuff on some public land up there in Kalkaska. You can get the full details about that and how to register and where to show up all that if you just Google Working for Wildlife Tour and then you'll find the links there to the registration page all the details need. I think it's from nine thirty to two, with partnership or in partnership with MUCC. I already told you what we're doing. I'm going to bring T shirts that I'll be giving away to the first twenty five volunteers out there. There's also going to be a social get together at the Bear Lake Inn afterwards. I think that's like from three to six, give or take somewhere in that ballpark. We'll be getting some food, hanging out talking. I'm excited to meet a bunch of you, hear your hunting and fishing stories, see some pictures, and make some great wildlife habitat too. But you know that's not all. There are also events similar to this, you know, all over the country. So if you're not in Michigan, don't feel bad. There are things you can do get outside and participate in earth that. And I did just a little bit of googling and I found a handful of different things very quickly. Take for example, if you are a backcountry hunters and anglers kind of person, there is a wood duck box building event over in Brunswick, Vermont, this Saturday. If you're down in Ohio, there is a tree planting event in the Wayne National Forest in Nelsonville, Ohio. Here's some stuff being down by Trout Unlimited. They've got a bunch of different river cleanup events all over the country, every different neck of the woods. There's one I just saw in Mianis River in Connecticut. There's another one on the Harpeth River in Tennessee uh Pheasants forever. If you're an upland kind of person, they've got some habitat work days going on. I saw one and have a land Kansas. I saw one in Worthington, Minnesota. So do a little bit of online searching with whatever organization you enjoy working with the most, or you can just search, like you know, Earth Day events in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and there's gonna be a whole bunch of different things pop up. My you know. Encouragement to you is to get out there, have some fun with it, give back a little bit, but most of all, I think it's just gonna be a good time. I've been preaching this over the last few weeks, so sorry, same old message, but uh man, it's just true. It is fun to be outside, to do some good work on the land, and to do it with some other people that enjoy wildlife, that enjoy hunting, that enjoy fishing, that enjoy the great outdoors. What more could you ask for? People? That's just the good life. So I hope to see you this Saturday, April twenty second in Michigan, and if not, can't wait to see your patures on social media and to hear your stories about all the other good stuff that's going on in your own region. So with all that out of the way, let's get into this conversation about the twenty twenty three Farm Bill. I know sometimes these legislation related episodes maybe aren't the most I don't know, riveting, but it's something that really matters, and it's something that we actually can have an impact on. We as citizens in America, have a voice and an opportunity to influence our representatives in Washington, DC and in this case, get some very serious funding for programs that make a real tangible difference on the ground. So let's make it happen. People, Let's get this bill in its best possible version for wildlife past and today. Wit and Aaron are going to help us understand exactly how we can do that. So without further ado, here we go. All right with me now on the show, I've got Witt Fossburg and Aaron Field. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. 00:09:24 Speaker 3: Great to be on, Mark. 00:09:27 Speaker 4: Thanks for having us Mark. 00:09:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, I'm going to put a challenge to the both of you, which is that we need to make a farm bill podcast riveting and entertaining. Okay, can you do that? Erin, We've had Wit on here before. I know what you can bring the goods, but Erin can you can you bring the goods on this one. 00:09:49 Speaker 4: You know, if I had to choose two adjectives to describe myself, it'd be riveting and entertaining. 00:09:54 Speaker 2: So okay, yeah, we can do it perfect. So then I think we're good shape the conversation today. I think, you know, while there's a lot of acronyms, there's a lot of jargon. Maybe sometimes when you get into this kind of legislation, it seems like this is really really important. This is a conversation that's worth having for a number of reasons. So I guess the first thing, though, I want to kind of lay a foundation for folks. If people don't know why in the world a deer hunting podcast is talking about a farm bill. Let's get that covered. So what do you want to maybe lay us a quick ground grounding on what the farm bill is and why. I think I just heard you a couple of days mentioned this is one of the largest pieces of conservation legislation around it all. 00:10:44 Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's actually is the largest single conservation legislation in the US federal policy. And if you think about, you know, the way the US is set up, if you take out alask seventy of the land in the continental US is privately owned, and about half of that is an agriculture of forestry raising in the traditional agricultural practices, and the majority of honting in this country half is on private land. We have six hundred and forty million acres of public lands, which especially for the West, do you do a lot of your honey on, But in the East and the Midwest, even in parts of the West, a lot of that honey is happening on private lands. And you know, the farm Bill was created back in nineteen eighty five with the Conservation Title, the modern conservation title, when there was a real crisis in you know, the agg in farm country. I got a lot of small farmers going under is where you had farm aid and all that, and it surreally Congress created this basically to pay farmers not to farm, and that was the Conservation Reserve program. That's when that started. And it turned out there were so many ansilary benefits to instead of just not farming and keeping people on the land that you know, this became really a major part of the farm bell and it grew from those early parts of the eighties and even going back after the dust Bowl We've had some basic farm bell programs, but today it's a six billion dollar program annually and there are you know, one hundred and fifty million plus, you know, acres out there. Their role in the conservation, you know, basically conservation you know, titled the Farm Bill one of these other different programs, and really these are all voluntary programs, so it's very different. You think about the traditional environmental laws where they're regulatory, you know, like the Clean Water Act and Clean Interact. A lot of that is based on which you cannot do, and the Farm Bill is a different paradigm here as we're looking at incentives for private lenders that want to do the right thing. And you know, it's been incredibly successful and very popular in farm country. And if you want white tailed deer, you hunt seasands, you hunt ducks, you fish for trout. It makes a big difference in what you do. And it also has other benefits. For example, to accept the CRP a conservation reserve program, for example, is a long waterways. You're also helping water quality, water quantity, and you know, so identefits beyond justicial wildlife. 00:13:19 Speaker 4: Yeah. 00:13:20 Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned that fifty percent of the United States is is crop line or pasture range, different things like that. I saw one of the stats when I was doing some reading up on your website that of that fifty percent of the land, those that amount of our country is in the hands of less than two percent of our citizens. So it's kind of a profound influence that these folks that steer those lands have on the conservation of our you know, so much of the public impacts of that land and the wildlife it fosters. So, Aaron, would you add anything to what Witch said to kind of give us the groundwork on why this thing matters. 00:14:05 Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think we covered it well. I would double back onto that comment about these are voluntary, incentive based programs and landowners really like them. Just to give you a couple of statistics, there's the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. Only about six percent of applications to that program by landowners actually get funded. Another one, Environmental Quality and centice program. Only thirty percent qualified applications get funded through that program right now. So there's a whole bunch of landowners, a whole bunch of farmers and ranchers and forest landowners who wants to use these programs to do right by the land and can't do it right now because we're not funding it. 00:14:51 Speaker 2: What's the scale of some of this? I get maybe you said it. Do you say one hundred and thirty some million acres or something that's enrolled in one of these programs. Is that I hear that right? 00:15:02 Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it's somewhere around hundred and sixty Yeah, I thought eron, you may have a more exact number than I do. But it's a significant chuck of the ground. 00:15:10 Speaker 2: Okay, So it's it's it's a real noticeable, impactful amount of you know, landscape that right now has healthy wildlife habitat on it in some form, rather than what it might have otherwise, which would have been a monoculture or a dirt field or something that likely would not be nearly as good for hunters, would not be as good for the stream quality and fish in those adjacent areas. Is there is there any kind of trend that we've seen in recent years when it comes to how the farm bill is progressing. You mentioned it, you know, started back in the dust bowl with some early farm programs, then it was kind of codified in the eighties with the with the current farm bill, as we call it now. In the subsequent years, it's an every five year program it gets reauthorized, and there seems to be a whole bunch of change that come every half decade. What has the history been, Aaron as far as where this farm bill is trending? Are we going in a good direction or have programs been getting cut and we're seeing the impact get you know, dwindling down over time. What have we seen and where does it feel like we're going now? 00:16:19 Speaker 4: Yeah, So the twenty fourteen Farm bill was pretty tough for these programs, several cuts. Twenty eighteen was technically budget neutral, but once you factor in inflation, that ends up being a cut to programs over time. We are expecting right now that this current bill that folks are working on is going to be at least close to budget neutral, which again comes down to a cut once you factory in inflation. We did see a big boost to these programs through a reconciliation bill at the end of last year, ended up putting about twenty billion dollars into many of the farm bill conservation programs that we like to see. And so sort of the mid range trend has been negative, but we've got a big chunk of opportunity that we haven't had in a long time in these programs right now. 00:17:13 Speaker 2: Okay, so so that's part of this this new title to funding that essentially correct me if I'm wrong here, but if I understand right, there's a doubling of conservation funding for this year's farm bill. Is that right? 00:17:31 Speaker 3: Yeah, technically it's not farm bill funding, but it's private land conservation funding. I mean, you know, it's only farm bell funding that passes through a farm bill. So the semantics here, but essentially what we've done is, you know, double the conservation title the Farm Bill due to the you know, the programs that Aaron talked about the past, you know, this fall. There's one exception to that, you know, the Conservation Reserve Program because of the you know, the weird rules by which the reconsiliation was passed, it was not included in it. So essentially you're going to see big additions to the other core programs of the conformation titled the Farm Bill, but not to CRP, which has really been going through some tough time in recent years. We'll finally seeing an uptick in CRP enrollment, but it's not nearly where we'd like it to be right now. 00:18:21 Speaker 2: Okay, So one more question before we kind of get into some of the nitty gritty, because I do want to dive into, you know, the actual programs, the actual stuff this is getting on the ground. But one thing that's always, I guess, kind of perplexing I think for a lot of even for me who follows the stuff pretty closely, is what the you know, what actually has to go on behind the scenes to make this stuff happen. I always lean on my elementary school education and the schoolhouse rock you know what a bill whatever that bill song was. That's basically the extent of my background of how a bill makes it to Capitol Hill. Can you walk us through what actually is going to be happening between now and the date when this will be authorized for twenty twenty three, What conversations are having, what committee hearings are having, what actually is going to happen. 00:19:20 Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll jump in here, and then Aaron, if I've missed anything, feel free to elaborate. But as you mentioned that every farm bill passes essentially every five years, give or take, and you know, so you and then there's the real challenge that implementation. So our community is engaged at two different levels. So as we're gearing up to this farm bill, as previous farm bills, we assemble the overall community of hunting and fishing groups and is something we call our Agriculture Wildlife Working Group and that's twenty six twenty seven different groups that meet regularly. Aaron supervises that group and herds the cats and we come up with a recommendation from our community what we want to see in the conservation title the farm bill, and then you know, we and the other groups that have lobbying capacity will make sure that you know that happens. Hearings are going on already on this and a lot of the way it works is they're going to be changes made in the program. You will see what are known as marker bills, so individual, you know, chunks of legislation that will get dropped in to be discussed that may be you know, something like the Conservation and SERVEI program and what we can do to make it better, you know, both for the landowner as well as for the environment. And you know, so you know there is a built in to do that right now that you know, we'll see some hearings on there are other marker bills on various other aspects of the farm bill, and then the committee, the Agriculture Committee, and the House and the Senate. We'll do hearings in d C. And they'll do field hearings around the country. The have the input on you know, these marker bills or the overall program in general. And then in theory, a bill passes and then we have implementation. And there's a major challenge of the implementation too, and so there has to be a technical assistance money. There has to be real engagements from groups like Centence, Forever Bucks, Unlimited Rough Grouse Society, the groups that have on the ground that really work in partnership with the agencies and with the landowners to get conservation and going on the ground. And also that process sends recommendations back up to us in Washington to saying, hey, this is working really well, but this isn't working so well. We would love to see some changes either on the administrative side as this gets implemented or necessary as we think about the next farm bill. Here are things that legislatively need to be fixed for this program to work better so it works both directions from DC down and then from the field back up to us and it gets evolves every five years, Aaron, if I covered that about right, Yeah, that's. 00:21:59 Speaker 4: That's the great summary. The addition I would make, I guess, is taking a step back to actually coming up with this list of priorities mentioned. We've got a large partner group. That group come together for a period of months and basically organizations would propose an item for our farm build platform and it would be discussed, to be debated, it would be vetted. If say a group proposed something that would be great for trout, but it wouldn't be good for you know, prairie grouse, that item wouldn't make the platform. So it's really just it's a great opportunity to bring all of these different groups together, get them talking, get them everybody on the same page as to what needs to happen in these programs to make them work for fish and wildlife as well as landowners, and then we can take that next step that was describing where we're getting it up on the hill and getting it paid attention to. 00:23:00 Speaker 3: So who and Mark, if you go back to really part of the reason that Tirasity was created was to make sure that we brought the community together on issues like that because in the old days, you know, the commodity groups to go into a room, they would come out with a farm bill position and they would stick to it the entire way through negotiations. Our community would go into a room, come out the position, and as soon as the going got tough, we would you break apart like a cup of quail, trying to cut the best deal they could for their critter. And as a result, you know, we were just we kept losing, and really was two thousand and eight Farm Bill where you know, we finally the community came together and locked arms and stayed locked and that has really been the ascension of the modern conservation titled the farm Bill. 00:23:44 Speaker 2: Okay, so, so who are these or can you give me some examples of who these folks or organizations are that have helped you guys put together this set of priorities that you're taking to the hill. You mentioned some yeah organizations in passing, but who had a seat at this table? 00:24:03 Speaker 3: So I'm not going to read through the whole twenty seven groups. But the big ones are, you know with Duck Sun Limited, fens for Over, Trotto Limited, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Turkey Federation, National Deer Association, you know, and you know a multitude of others. Land trust community is involved with that because things like the conservation easement programs in the farm Bill are really implemented by the land trust community. So it is you know, Aaron might missing anybody big in there. 00:24:35 Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's a it's a long list in which right not to try to read through the whole thing, but I just say that there is expertise in each of these groups in the different programs. If we had to rely just on my knowledge, we would have a much shorter list of priorities here and it would be a lot a lot less useful. So we've got a great group in the Egg and Wildlife Working Group who put this in first. You know, folks can go on our website TRC dot org and you know, just search farm bill and you'll see, you know, the basics about how the program works. You'll see our recommendations of the twenty twenty three Farm Bill. You'll see the groups that find our recommendations that went up to Congress. So a lot of that will be you know, anybody who's. 00:25:17 Speaker 3: You know that curious can go and get all the details. 00:25:20 Speaker 2: Okay, So when I when I think about this upcoming, you know, moving into this year and the authorization of this bill, there's a number of different priorities that I know you guys have listed out as part of the process working with this group. But before we get into what those opportunities and priority areas are, I'm curious if there's any overarching threats, Like if there's a bunch of things we want, but is there anything that we're worried about losing or having slashed? Is there anything like that that's looming over this process that we have to make sure we defend against. What does anything come to mind when I bring that side of things up. 00:26:10 Speaker 3: Well, I think that one of the big challenges we're going to have is, you know that new money you know that came through the you know, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Reconciliation Bill, the Comment Bill. You know, how do we make that part of the permanent baseline of the Farm Bill moving forward? I mean it's you know that twenty billion dollars is great, is going to make a huge difference in programs for the next few years, but you know, really that auto represents a new baseline for that farm Dell because as Aaron mentioned before, there is twice as much demand out there for landowners. They're raising our hand that want to be in this program, then there is money to pay for him. We finally solve that in the short term, but we want to make sure that doesn't slide backwards and we're having a bunch of land that goes into conservation that falls out of it five years from now. And you know, I think that, you know, that's just not fair to the landowner and must be something clear here. Nobody is enrolling their best corn and soybean fields into conservation programs. It is the marginal lands that may fail every other year, every third year, that really aren't the best for farming to begin with. Those are the ones that are getting enrolled. So you know, we're not I mean, I am not worried about us not being able to feed the world by entering more land into farm conservation. In fact, we're giving basically more benefits to the farmers, you know, more security, more conscious what they can do long term. So I think it actually enhances the farm security. 00:27:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, how likely is this is? This idea of being able to make this the new baseline. Is this like a pie in the sky cross our fingers, wish and dream or is that a realistic possibility with the right pressure. 00:27:52 Speaker 3: I think with the right pressure, I think it's a realistic possibility. I mean, it's not a slam dunk by any means. But in part of our job, this is convinced risk that this makes sense on multiple levels. It makes sense from the landowner, it makes sense for the environment, It makes sense for the hunters and anglers out there. If you care about climate change, this is the way to sequester a whole bunch of carbon. And you know so, I mean, and it's all voluntary. So I think that we can make that case. And I think that you know, the folks who don't like government overreach, you know, this is not a program to target. You know, there are a lot of other more mandatory programs you know that in the farm maybe not in the farm bell but in certainly Western the way government works that ought to have their ire and not these voluntary programs that pretty much are win wins for everybody. 00:28:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, what's your what's your read on the impact of the hunter and angler community voice on these kinds of things? I mean we were chatting the other day about how, you know, on typical environmental things, there's going to be there's almost a superpower maybe that hunter, hunters and anglers have because we can speak to a side of the aisle maybe that isn't typically as interested in this kind of conversation. Can you expand on that at all? Is there any truth to that? You know what? 00:29:10 Speaker 4: Well? 00:29:11 Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Mark, I mean I think that you know, first of all, I mean we end up being very aligned with private land. In our community. They pretty much all hunting fish and you know, the folks that hunt and fish are very aligned with them. So there's a good synergy there. But also, I mean we're not your traditional environmental voice. I mean we're not we're litigating. We're not you know, shrill, you know, sort of left to environmentalists or whatever the stereotype might be. I mean, we're folks that are out there that use the land, that you care about making sure the open spaces stay open spaces, but that the farmers stay on the land. And so I think when you've seen this in different ways, I mean, when our community stood up for public lands, it completely changed the dialogue in that time back in the mid two thousands or in twenty thirteen, fourteen, fifteen sixteen, you know, there was a lot of momentum to basically get rid of public lands transformed to the states to sell them off for profit, and it was really our community is standing up for that and flexing this muscle on something other than the Second Amendment that really turned the tide. And I think that we can do that on farm bill too. But part of our job, and I'm glad you're doing this podcast, is to educate the average hunter of fishermen out there that these programs are really important, not just for fish and wat not just for environmental quality, but also for things like access. I mean, Aaron, we'll talk about this voluntary public access having to have improvement program, but that is right now basically pays for about three million acres of private lands to be opened for public hunting and fishing. So it's an access program as well. But a lot of our community just doesn't understand it and doesn't know the benefits that it brings. That think this is something that is not relevant to them. 00:30:57 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so true. Let's talk about some of that stuff, some of the programs that make this so relevant. For folks like the three of us and anybody else who likes to hunt and fish. Aaron, if you will do me this favor, I'm gonna throw at you a couple of the high kind of profile programs, and I'll give kind of my layman's understanding of the program, and then I'll ask you to correct me, to fill in the blanks, to flesh it out and give us the expert point of view. And then from there, I'm curious to hear you know, what are we looking forward with this program in the new farm Bill? So that's kind of my plan to walk through these next couple big programs. And let's start with CRP, because that's I think a headliner whenever we talk about the Farm Bill, and it's something that a lot of hunters do have some kind of experience with. I have to admit that I knew of CRP before I even understood what the acronym stood for. I just thought that's what people call brushy grassy fields. I didn't really realize that was a program behind it. And I guess that means it's successful if we've now started to define a type of landscape by the program that has made it possible. But here's my layman's understanding of CRP. This is a program that pays a per acre on a per acre basis to a farmer to take land out of farm production. So he'll take an acre out of corn or soybeans or something and instead plant some kind of other native I think always native grasses forbes, mixed different things like this, getting some kind of different habitat type on the landscape. That's better for wildlife, that's better for the soil quality, it's better for carbon sequestration, water filtration, all these different things. And there's a number of different programs to help fund that, to monitor that, to make sure that land's being taken care of in a way that's good for all, while also paying that farmer, you know, fair market price for that land. And so that is what leads to like you mentioned, with one hundred and fifty some million acres or however many are actually in CRP, I guess it's not that many. It's something like twenty seven million or something. But a bunch of land in this great habitat for deer, great habitat for birds, pheasants, all that kind of stuff. It's the favorite kind of place I like to hunt near where I can see into these grassy fields, great cover for deer to bed in. There's still some food in there too. During the rut there's always bucks cruising around the down wind edges of those types of spots. I mean, it's primo habitat. So that's what I know at a very high level about CRP. What should a hunter know outside of that? Or said more eloquently than I could air? 00:33:39 Speaker 4: Well, you actually you nailed it. Actually, I love that description, and I think pointing out the deer habitat benefits to CRP is something we haven't always done a great job of. Pheasant hunters know it well. Duck hunters know it real well, especially if you put that CRP up in the prairie pothole region where we're growing a bunch of ducks. The other thing you mentioned where you know where I live. I live in western Minnesota. If there's grass and there's knock hows on it, people just refer to it as CRP. It doesn't matter what it actually is enrolled in and whether it's enrolled in a program at all. So got some name recognition there, which is great, But basically you hit most of the program. I'll say one thing, you said, pay a fair rental rate. For the most part, we're not paying a fair rental rate right now. We're relying on landowners out of their goodness of their heart to sign up for this program. In most places, the amount we're able to pay is just really not competitive with crop production right now. And that's one of the main reasons where we've got about twenty three million acres enrolled in the CRP right now, we should have about twenty seven million acres, and a lot of that has to do with rental rates. But yeah, you're taking typic real marginal land that is high risk for crop production. And often what a lot of people don't realize is a certain percentage of just about every egg every crop field in the country is costing the farmer money to farm. It might be too wet, it might be too steep, the soil might be too heavily eroded. You might have you know, saline or sodaic issues. Anyway, there's a lot of reasons that can happen, but something like five to fifteen percent, depending on where you are in the country, you're actually losing money on because we're paying for seed, we're paying for fertilizer and we're not getting that crop production out of it anyway. We're taking acres like that typically putting them into conservation cover something that makes good nesting habitat, makes good betting habitat, stops soil erosion, and basically just putting it in a higher use. We find folks up for a ten to fifteen, in some cases thirty year contract to keep that cover in place, and then we asked them to take care of it. 00:36:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is something that I know a lot of even land managers, you know, who own tracks of land primarily for a wildlife even at least look to try to get involved. And I know there's some folks I know who've been able to get their own land into a CRPRE program or something similar, and you know, within that there's flexibility to plant these different mixes. But then also there might be room for some food plots even within that. So I know this is kind of in the side, but the CRP program and similar programs are an interesting option for recreational landowners to try to get into as a way to somewhat help subsidize habitat improvement projects that benefit you know, downstream and across the kind of the ripple effects of a specific property. But I guess that's neither here nor there. My biggest question for you, Aaron, given that CRP is it has been capped, how many acres are allowed to get into it? And then, as you mentioned, we're not necessarily paying a rate that makes it competitive with what the market is paying folks for their crop. What is it that we're asking for in this round of the Farm bill when it comes to CRP. What are the big changes or requests that we have. 00:37:27 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the biggest issue here is we're not providing strong enough incentives to get to that acreage cap in previous years. You know, we work on getting that acreage cap higher right now, we just need to make the program attractive enough to get to that current cap. So a few things that we would like to see. First of all, improving those rental rates would be a huge step towards making this program all that it could be. But a couple of just simple things. There's a payment limitation uh land can't exceed and that limit was set nineteen eighty five, so we'd like to see that raise to account for inflation. We'd like to restore cost here for the management activities we ask people to do on their CRP. So if we say, all right, you're signed up for a ten year contract, at year five, we want you to go in and mowbrush and spray weeds. We think that the landowners should receive some cost here so they're not shouldering that entire cost. And we also think that there's some room to put grading infrastructure in place where it makes sense. So where I live in Minnesota, for example, a lot of these grasslands evolved with some grazing. And if we can put the infrastructure, put the fencing, put the water facilities in place so that we can use livestock as a management tool on that acre, that saves us some taxpayer money for other ways of managing, and it also provides an incentive to the landowner to have that enrollment. And so we've been working and we were happy to see a marker bill that Wit mentioned earlier be introduced, the CRP Improvement app that would do several of these things. So we're hopeful that that can move forward this Congress. 00:39:27 Speaker 2: Okay, so if we can get all those things done, if we can get those rates back to a more reasonable level, do you feel confident that we will not be in a position like we were a handful of years ago where folks were dropping out of CRPRE and we were seeing you know, more and more land converted back into egg We're seeing wildlife habitat come off the ground. How do you feel about the general future prospects of this program and all those acres that we that we desperately need. 00:39:57 Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think we definitely can get back to the point where this is used positively. I think that TRP has had a bit of a public relations problem in the past, and hunters and anglers are some of the only folks who have you know, stood up for this program, which in terms of environmental benefits is pretty much the best thing we can do within farm bill conservation programs, maybe next to our easements, but just a ton of positives. And we just need to keep telling that story, and especially hunters and especially taking that next step from moving out from our duck hunters and peasant hunters and having our deer hunters talk about this, having you know, predator hunters talk about this. It's an important program. Yeah. 00:40:45 Speaker 2: So how about we moved to the next one, the volunteer public Access and Habitat Incentive program. My super high level simpletons description of this term is, this is a program that provides funding for state to create public access programs where we pay a landowner to open up their land to some level of hunting and fishing access. This is how we have like walking programs in states like North Dakota or Kansas or Montana. I think Minnesota maybe has something like that. I know Michigan has something like that. There's a lot of states that have these programs, and I think this is the primary funding mechanism for those. It's one of the biggest challenges for hunters these days is finding places to hunt. While there's not necessarily more hunters than there used to be, there sure seems like there's more active hunters out on these public lands these days. So having increased access to private lands seems like a heck of a good deal and something we would all really benefit from. Is that a correct way to describe this program? And what else would you add to that? 00:41:52 Speaker 4: Ain? Yeah, So this is basically take the programs that states and now tribes have already created private lands access programs, you know, from Kansas to you mentioned Minnesota's program with walk in areas from North Dakota to the private land open to sportsmen. So taking these programs that have already been designed at the state level, and oftentimes they're implemented at even smaller levels of government. So for example, in Minnesota, it's our soil and Water conservation districts that actually enroll land in the walk in Access program. But you're supplementing the funds that states have available to do those programs. So for example, in Minnesota, I pay my three dollars walk in Access validation fee every time I buy my hunting license, and there's other sources of state and local funding that are used to support that walk in Access program whatever it's called in your state. But this is a federal program that states apply for these funds and they they tell USTA how we're going to use them, and USDA awards those out as a grant. And what's really cool about this is not only are they locally designed, locally led in your state, but they've got a massive return on investment. And I don't know if anybody expected that when these programs came out. With could probably tell me some more of the history here, but we've got a recent report that says, basically, if we spend one dollar through the VPA hip program in a rural community to open up access, we're seeing a return of about over eight almost nine dollars to that investment. And that's because hunters and fishermen and fisher women are coming to town. They're eating at restaurants, they're buying gas, they are staying at hotels, they're seeing the sites while they're in town, they're shopping in local stores, and so it's been a massive boon to rural communities. And this is really in terms of farm bill dollars. I didn't mention this at the front, but conservation programs themselves are a really small chunk of the farm bill. Nutrition programs take up the bulk, crop related programs take up the next and conservation is just kind of a small sliver of that. A VPA hip that this program is a sliver of a sliver of a sliver. This is only a fifty million dollar program right now. Spread that out among fifty states, put it over five years. We could make a lot bigger impact for hunting access and for early economies if we were to support this program better. 00:44:42 Speaker 3: Yeah, Aaron touched on this and I'm gonna go back a little bit of history. It was really the state of Kansas that pioneered this and at that time Steve Williams, who then went on to become you know, the US Social Widle Life Service director and now runs a wildlife management institute. He was ahead of the Fish and Game Department out there and they created this program became so popular that they had counties in the state giving them grants so they could go out and basically expand it. And that was really the model for the national program which came in two thousand and eight. And it's also worth noting that this is something that a farmer can layer on other programs, so you may have CRP and then you get additional money for this. And part of this is too, is not just you know, paying the farmer to open up their land up hunt and fish. It also waives the state assumes liability if somebody who falls in a ditch and breaks their leg and trusts to sue. So it removes that whole aspect, which is a prohibition from the model landers wanting the public on that land. They're afraid of that. So it works on multiple levels. We have a there's a marker bill out there right now that would expand this program into one hundred and fifty million dollars and you know, which would obviously triple it. But you know, it just can't be understated overstated just how important it is for the hunting and fishing public as well as for the landowner who wants to you know, get as much benefit as he can out of doing the right thing. 00:46:05 Speaker 2: Yeah. So is that the ask for that one hundred and fifty million in funding for the program or is there something else? Yeah? 00:46:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean this program works really well. USTA might need a little bit more flexibility as to how they roll it out to states, but for the most part, we can just fund this program better and it'll do a lot of good. 00:46:30 Speaker 3: The other cool thing about this one is that this is you know, block grants the states, and the states can do their own programs. And when this program got created, you had states like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut that had very little public lan and didn't have any programs like this, you know, create the programs. All of a sudden there was a source of several funding that then they could match that would create this program. So basically build it and they will come. 00:46:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, this just seems like a no brainer. It's and it's for the for the the hunting and fishing community in particular. I mean, it's just one of those big flashing red lights of a problem for so many people trying to find places to go these days. This is I don't know if there's any more impactful opportunity to change that than this. I mean, real meaningful dollars to open up access. So if you hate trying to understand all the acronyms within the farm bill, if CRP and EQUIP and all these different things are too much, just remember habitat access equals the farm bill, And that alone is a very selfish reason to get behind this kind of stuff. But there's plenty more selfish reasons. The next one, Aaron, is EQUIP. I want to talk about EQUIP a little bit. My cliff notes version of what this program does, and the acronym is the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, I believe, But the cliff notes for what that does is basically is a program that provides financial assistance and incentives to landowners to do things on their land in an environmentally friendly way. For example, you know, using different agricultural practices when planting their crops, such as using cover crops or maybe no till drilling, or doing different things along those lines that basically preserve soil quality, preserve water, et cetera, et cetera. All of that is good for fish, it's good for wildlife, it's good for wildlife habitat all sorts of different things like that that are associated or adjacent to these agricultural lands. Is that right, Aaron? What I miss on that one? To kind of keep it high level. 00:48:36 Speaker 4: Well, I'm thinking we need to get you in some congressional offices because you're doing a great job. Yeah, so equip This is one that we do not have to sell to the egg community and to legislators who are tuned into the egg community. Farmers and ranchers love this programs. It's the simplest program. You know. We can walk in and we come up with a conservation plan for your farm and ranch, and we can start putting practices on the ground and help you pay for them. You mentioned cover crops is one of them. Reduced tillage is another practice that can be used. We can cost share putting sense to keep cows out of the creek. There's just we can we can cost are putting in conservation cover, we can help up on bird habitat, and so it's basically a list of list of things that have great societal benefits, a list of things that help with long term I'm talking generational egg production and some things that they might just take you know, it might take a little cost here, it might take a few years of implementation to get them to that profitability standard for the individual farmer rancher. So currently within EQUIP there's a requirement that ten percent of funding go to wildlife conservation practices, and those practices vary a lot from state to state, you know, in you know, let's let's say in the western Dakotas, you might need a shelter belt somewhere to provide some winter cover in long leaf pine forest. That might be getting prescribed fire back on the ground, so doing some maybe some brush control first and then getting prescribed fire back into that forest to benefit quail. But so states and state technical committees, which are just groups of people within the state who care about agricultural conservation and have expertise in it, are to use of EQUIP funds for wildlife and we want to make sure that that requirement stays in place. There's other requirements that funding go to livestock operations and things like that. We want to keep that wildlife requirement and we want to make sure that that n RCS and the state technical committees are putting a lot of into using that ten percent wisely and putting it towards things that really are great for wildlife, rather than you know, seeing it as sort of an afterthought, Oh this maybe this counts, and we'll just contact under the bucket. I think most states are doing a good job of this. We want to make sure that it continues to be that way. 00:51:19 Speaker 3: Okay, and Mark, also, it's worth noting that, you know, you've heard a lot about the drought and the prolonged drought in the West and what that's doing the Colorado River and you know a lot of streams, and this is a program you use for that too. For example, when I was a trial limited, we were using equip grants to go in there and work with individual landowners to improve the irrigation efficiency or to go from flood irrigation to you know, you know, center pivot or something like that would save water. And then you put that saved water into a stream for fish. So it has a bunch of different applications that you know, if your creative out there, the conservation front could very well work with equip. 00:51:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that makes a lot of sense. Last headliner for me at least would be the conservation easement programs that are part of this, and again super high level conservation easements are basically a situation where the development rights for a property are essentially transferred to the government bought for some fair rate, essentially allowing that place to remain undeveloped into perpetuity. You know, this is obviously by the choice of the landowner. They're voluntarily you know, selling that future right and they get a financial benefit for it. And the short termament ensures that these places stay undeveloped and you know, highly conserved habitat into the future. And I don't know all about the details in the Farm Bill how that specific places play it out, but there are programs like that within the Farm Bill, Aaron, can you can you fill in the gaps there? 00:53:07 Speaker 4: Yeah, So these mostly fall under the Agricultural Conservation Easement program that's split into the egg Land Easement a l E and then the Wetland Reserve easements. So a lot of hunters and anglers paid most attention to the w R the Wetland Reserve easements, and as you mentioned, landowners voluntarily give up some of the some of the right to develop on their land in exchange for a market price. They retain the right to access, they retain the right to restrict access. They can use it for a lot of different things. It's just we're not going to turn it into a housing development. We're not going to drain that wetland. So u as you can imagine, some people will hear that and they'll say, oh, well, why would I want to give that up? Well, you know, for a lot of people, that connections to the land is so important that they don't want to see that, you know, get turned into that strip mall get turned into that housing development or whatever it is. And so they're looking for a way to protect their protect that land into the future. And I think I mentioned this earlier, but from Wetland Reserve easements, ninety four percent of the people who walked in the door and offered up their land for an easement are are turned down because we don't have the resources to do it right now. There's a pretty big hole that I think a lot of deer hunters will be interested in. We don't have a really great way to do forest easements. And these would basically maintain forested land as forests, and you'd still have you know, management taking place, you'd still have conservation appropriate forestry practices, you'd still be taken member off of that land, but it would be maintained in forest. And so we'd really like to see a program created. We tested it out through the Healthy Forest Reserve program. We want to see that expanded and you know, provide an opportunity for forest landowners to participate in an easement program that keeps their working for us in a working forest. 00:55:22 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, is there anything else you would add as far as highlights that we haven't touched on within the twenty three farm bill. 00:55:33 Speaker 3: Well, I was just saying that, you know, if you talk about the Eastmorn programs, which are incredibly important, you know, there are some you know folks that you're you know, like itvs. Govers a very tough state for easements, and you know, some others are a lot of sort of political blowback about locking up land forever. But I mean, this is not exactly a radical concept. I mean, we have about sixty million acres in this country. They're under conservation usement and again they're totally volid terry. And it's like, you know, I want to decide that I want to make sure that the land I've grown up and never gets turned into condos or an Amazon Facilma station or whatever it might be. You know, it seems to me and if somebody's willing to pay me for it, that's my right as a lando er decide how my land's going to be used. And you know, so I just think that, you know, we just need to remember the dating picture here that you know, this is you know, this is supporting private property rights. This is not going against property property rights by any means. But I think bigger picture, it's worth noting too that the Farm bill something has always been bipartisan, and we talked about these, you know, marker bills are out there on the Public Access Provisions or on the CRP provisions, you know, the CRP Improvement Act for example, that's you know, John Foon or Republican from South Dakota and Amy Klobachar you who is you know, demograph from Minnesota, you know, so this is one of those few areas in Congress that still work. And it still works, you know in rural America. But the reason, part of the reason we can always pass a farm bill too is that there's an urban constituency for it as well, because, as Aaron mentioned, you know, the food security programs, the SNAP programs, the farm you know, the food stamps. You know, that's all part of the farm bill too. So you have this good for farmers, it's good for producers, you know, it's good for feeding the world, and it's good for a rural the name for urban America where there's still a lot of people that need this to get by. So you know, that weird dynamic means that we typically can pass a farm bill every five years. And so when you see folks saying, well, we shouldn't be spending as much on you know, the Nutrition Title or food stamps or whatever, they remember, this is a very delicate balance between what rural American needs and what urban American needs, and it works. So you know, those are just my sort of big picture observations. 00:57:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a good thing to remember. They're about that that balance and you know, I guess leveraging the opportunity we have here with something that is bipartisan, with a lot of different people at the table, we can recognize some pretty significant benefits for fish and wildlife, when otherwise it'd be a lot harder to get this kind of thing pushed through. Probably, So, Aaron, is there anything else super noteworthy when it comes to this round of the farm bill that we haven't touched on that folks really need to know about before we get into action items and what we can do to push this thing through. 00:58:32 Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm ready to jump to action items, but one that I'll bring up so to get somebody enrolled in these programs to actually get the conservation work on the ground, you've got to have people there to do it. And we ask a ton of the staff in our USDA service centers where you would go to enroll in any of these programs minus VPA hip. You do that through your state or local government agency. But we absolutely need to make sure that when a farmer, rancher, landowner walks in the door and sits down next to somebody's desk, First of all, we need to make sure that there's somebody who's hired to sit at that desk so that they can actually answer questions. But we need to make sure there's somebody who they can trust, who can answer their questions, who can go out to their farmer ranch and walk them through all the different options and areas where we can make some improvements and then shepherd them through this. You know, there's a lot of applications, there's a lot of detail. There's a lot of things that the average person isn't going to be able to walk through. We've got to make sure we're well staffed, and sometimes we forget about it. We talked about the programs themselves and how we can make them better. We've got to have the people in place to do it too, and whether they're a USDA employee, that's very important for a NGO non governmental organization partner who is helping to you know, talk land owners through this process and get them enrolled. Either way, we need to make sure that there's you know, qualifying people there who can take the call and work someone through this process. 01:00:11 Speaker 2: Yeah, can argue with that. We've got these diverse set of asks. I guess right, we're asking for a whole bunch of different things related to CRP, related to access, related to environmental quality, related to easement's related to staffing. There's a lot of different things here and on the priority document. I know you guys have developed those a whole list of other things as well. There's a lot of things that we're hoping that the hunting and fishing community can see come to fruition in this addition to the farm bill, Aaron, But I'm doubtful that I or anyone listening could remember to list all twenty four different priorities in a phone call to someone in angs or in an email or something like that. So I guess what I'm curious about is for the average person listening to this, what should we actually do, what should we actually be asking for? And when's the most important time to do it? 01:01:17 Speaker 4: Sure, I'll give you a couple options and then pass it over to with First off, visit our website at TRST dot org. Click on our Fine Deal page and we'll take you to an explanation of a lot of programs in layman's terms, and we'll guide you towards an action alert that will put you in touch with your legislators and reach out to them directly. The other thing I'll say is if you get a legislator you know in person, or you get a lawmaker on the phone, or you get one of their staff on the phone, you don't have to know all the details of these programs. What you need to do is tell them that you love to hunt and fish, you want to have great places to be able to do that, and farm build conservation programs are one of the ways we can get there, and that you need them to get it done. So having that personal connection is a lot more important than having all the details straightened out. 01:02:15 Speaker 2: What about timing? When when do we start getting on the horn about this stuff? 01:02:20 Speaker 4: We need to get on the horn right now. So farm bills are being written as we speak, both in Senate and House egg committees. Staffers are taking input right now, they're putting it into legislative texts, and they'll be rolling stuff out in the next few months. So early and often is the answer to the when question. 01:02:44 Speaker 2: Okay, what would you add on all that? 01:02:48 Speaker 3: Yeah? I think eron covered really well. If you go to tiersp dot org and you sign up, not only will it send something to your legislator, but then you'll also receive regular updates from us about what's going on, and then if there is a something really critical that we need to weigh in on about an individual program or individual member of Congress, we can reach back out to you. Again, I think it is important what Aaron said too, is you don't need to be an expert and don't be intimidated by the process. Just talk about the need for hunting, fishing, good habitat on private lands and the importance of the farm bill and making that happen. And more they hear that, then you know, that's just bucks them up, and you know that's can be way more impactful than a form letter coming out of a website. When you sign up, the formula will go and that's great. But you know, it's a sense that you can attend a field hearing in your neighborhood if you can, you know, write your legislators, you can call in, and can call in the evening. And if we leave a message on the office voicemail, it'll get listened to and it we'll get responded to. So that individual, you know, sort of contact that you would do beyond just something as simple as you know, checking a box on an online form. And that's really important. 01:04:06 Speaker 2: As well. 01:04:07 Speaker 3: And I think that you know, tell your neighbors, you know, talk about it. It's your local rotary club or grange meeting, you know, talk about it, your local chapter meeting it says it's Forever Ducks, some limit or tea or whatever the group is. And you know, just get organized and just make your voice. Your voice gets heard. Because the squeakiest wheel in Washington often gets the grease, and this is a squeaky wheel that deserves grease. 01:04:32 Speaker 2: It seems like it can't be said enough. This is the largest private land conservation bill instead of funding available every single year, right, I mean, this is this is it is the. 01:04:44 Speaker 3: Largest conservation bill period. 01:04:48 Speaker 4: Wow. 01:04:49 Speaker 3: So it is bigger than the funding for all the land management agencies, you know. So I think that you know, it's it is a huge deal. And you know, again it's supporting you know, the farmers and ranchers of America that feed us all. And it's also great for hunting and fishing, great for water quality, great for clientate, you name it. 01:05:09 Speaker 2: Awesome all right, gentlemen, Well, I will be getting on the horn here myself. I hope that a lot of our listeners will too, and I will be sending folks to TRCP dot org and I actually just checked. If you go to trcp dot org slash farm bill, it takes you directly to your farm bill landing page, which has lots of great resources there for folks too. So great work with all the resources you guys provide. And thank you so much for walking us through all this here today. 01:05:37 Speaker 3: Hey, Mark, thanks for the invitation and thanks for just keeping this issue front and center and your listeners. 01:05:44 Speaker 4: I really appreciate it. Mark. This is a fantastic that you're able to spotlight. 01:05:48 Speaker 2: This for us, my pleasure. Guys, have a great rest of to day, you too, all right, and that is a wrap thanks to Wit and Erin again for all of that that they share. I'm ready to start making some phone calls, sending some emails, doing all that good stuff. We've got a great opportunity ahead of us this year. The twenty twenty three farm bill can be the best ever. And if all of us listening right now, if all of us we got tens of thousands of people listening to this, if we all take some action and talk to our senators, talk to our representatives, this thing can get across the finish line. And do some incredible things deer, for deer hunting, for all sorts of animals, for our hunting access opportunities, and so much more so, I hope you will join me in participating in this opportunity to be active participants in American government. I guess you might be able to say so. With that said, thanks for tuning in. I appreciate you. I'm really proud of this community we have and having you a part of it means a lot to me. So until next time, stay wired to hunt. 01:07:05 Speaker 4: Mm hmm

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