Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate:

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee. I represent myself and our family farming operation. I bring the experience of forty years of conservation tillage and two and one-half years as Chief of the Soil Conservation Service. It was two and one-half years of very rewarding service as we were able to help producers meet the environmental requirements of the 85 and 90 farm programs.

Now it's the millennium, the beginning of a new century, America is awash in prosperity, the best fed, best housed and best entertained people the world has known, yet billions over the world are hungry and we food producers are not sharing these good times. Add to this the public concerns for green space, recreation, wildlife, food safety, and the environment, all luxuries only the well fed and the prosperous can afford and you have the stage set for the farm and environmental debate of our new century.

Freedom to Farm (the last or phase-out farm support program) matures in 2002 and only with massive supplemental and disaster assistance have we supported the agricultural economy thru 1999 and will probably continue thru 2000 or as long as the United States enjoys a booming economy and budget surplus.

However, federal funds for conservation and environment assistance directed toward agriculture have steadily declined over the past eight years. This is ironic because conservation was used as the excuse to funnel money to an impoverished countryside back in the beginning of farm programs in the 1930's. This funding and these early programs started the federal and state conservation movement. The resulting reductions in water and wind erosion and the instilling of a conservation ethic has became a model for the world. Conservation cost share and free technical assistance became a standard part of federal farm legislation.

This changed in 1985 when erosion control and wetland preservation were made requirements for participation in commodity support and other USDA programs. It was called cross compliance. This U-turn in the politics of conservation from totally voluntary to required sent shock waves through production agriculture; the resulting producer's hostility helped send me to Washington as the SCS chief. With my background in no-til or direct seeding and with the help of the chemical and the machinery industries, The Farm Press and the other USDA agencies we were able to sell conservation tillage as the best practice to meet erosion requirements, and for the most part we were successful. Erosion dropped to sustainable levels in many regions of the country and conservation tillage peaked out at roughly 40% of planted acres.

Then politics changed. The signal from Washington was conservation tillage was no longer politically correct. The agenda switched from the real measurable problem of soil erosion to the perceived problem of herbicide dependance. Conservation tillage (30% or more surface residue) has leveled out nationally It's gaining in cotton, wheat and soybeans but losing in the corn belt, especially in highly erodible Iowa where we lost 1,433,000 acres or ten percent in 1998 by Conservation Technology Information Center measurements.

The United States is unlike our competitors, Canada, Argentina and Brazil who have all passed us in the percent of cropland direct seeded. Competition will be the ultimate factor that dictates adoption. I'm concerned as one of those who started the conservation tillage revolution that we've unleashed a monster. Around the world millions of acres of new lands are coming into production that would be too fragile or unprofitable without conservation tillage.

Why is conservation tillage in the U. S. losing ground? We know of some yield problems both real and perceived. We need encouragement from conservation leaders, especially those from NRCS. We need more research and equipment design, especially in the northern cornbelt but I submit the big factor is politics. Many believe USDA has slacked off on compliance and Congress has reacted to the farmer backlash of required conservation.

I feel and hope future conservation programs will be separate, voluntary, and incentive based. We have learned our lessons on cross compliance. From experience as a farmer and past SCS chief, I'm convinced we get conservation on the land and behavioral change with incentives and education, not requirements and regulations.

We must realize the environmental political focus is changing. No longer is soil erosion the only issue. We must now address water quality, air quality, wildlife habitat, and etc. and again conservation tillage will be in the forefront. We have always known and understood the immediate fuel, labor and machine savings of conservation tillage. We also captured the management opportunity of spreading our talent over more acres with reduced tillage. Then came the erosion and conservation benefits that became political after the '85 farm bill. Only recently have we understood the long term soil quality, water quality and wildlife benefits accuring from continuous direct seeding. No-til or direct seeding will become universal because of the long term soil quality improvements and raw world competition.

The opportunity to increase organic matter (soil carbon) will first, increase productivity or land value and second, sequester carbon for a world concerned with climate change from greenhouse gasses.

The Agricultural Research Service has found as much as one to two percent organic manner increase in 10 to 20 years of continuous no till. The bad news is that we have tilled away or eroded 50 percent of organic matter from our soils over the last 100 years. Scientists estimate that we have lost 5 to 6 billion tons of carbon from our nation's farmland. By converting from plow till to no till and including cover crops in the rotation cycle, we can re-sequester soil carbon at the rate of 300 to 500 pounds per acre per year. So the good news, we have the technology, machinery, and science to put it back. What's this worth in land value? In our country on lighter soils, probably five hundred dollars per acre at current price levels. Something landowners cannot ignore.

What it's worth to the public depends on how we address the clean air and greenhouse gas problems. President Clinton has announced tougher emission controls for new automobiles and S. U. V's which adds two hundred plus dollars to the cost of each vehicle. Many feel agriculture has the potential to sequester the carbon for 50 percent of our auto emissions. Scientists at Ohio State and NRCS/ARS have estimated that adoption of recommended agriculture practices on U.S. cropland has a potential to sequester 70 to 200 milllion tons of carbon per year. In addition, grazing lands have a potential to sequester 30 to 110 millions tons of C per year. We should encourage our farmers and ranchers to do whatever is recommended to achieve these potentials. When the public (and Congress) understand this, carbon sequestration will be the action in the next round of farm and conservation legislation. I feel the public, if given the chance, would quickly choose their big autos over payments to producers for sequestration. Science has documented the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. I don't feel we know why, or if man has anything to do with it, however, the world is going to throw money and/or regulations at global climate change and agriculture can and should earn some of this money.

I serve as an advisor on the USDA Climate Change Assessment Team and this year's federal budget contains four billion dollars for global climate work of which agriculture will receive fifty seven million. I was in Costa Rica three years ago and visited land owners who were buying cheap land banking on the United States and European Union funding to keep it in trees. Ohio power companies are already investing in South America. Environmentalist over the world are preparing for a harvest of public money! The competition will be keen. It will be trees, grass, wildlife habitat, verses cropland, grazing, and wood production. The pressure to take land out of agriculture production will increase as many in the environmental community believe the solution to over production and low commodity prices is simply public control of land or long term CRP which only exports our production and environmental problems to other countries. I hear it frequently, We've bought that land three times in the last fifty years, next time we should keep it. We in agriculture must get our environmental solutions into the public arena and into legislation.

I hope in the near future we will have the opportunity to put in place a comprehensive conservation incentive program to reward producers for stewardship. We offer a solution to the global climate change - greenhouse gas problems that's a win-win for all concerned. Whether the problems are real or perceived, public funding for increase organic matter, improved soil quality, better water quality, and less erosion, all leading to higher productivity is a good investment for our people and the whole world and it can be sold under the banner of carbon sequestration.

We need a program similar to the concept introduced in the Senate earlier this year. It would establish a voluntary program that will reward producers for good environmental stewardship with the basic practice conservation tillage. Grain and livestock producers would contract for five years to follow a total resource management plan that calls for a menu of practices that pertain to their operations. Producers could earn up to forty percent of their county rental rate and livestock producers ten percent of sales per year with practices such as conservation tillage, comprehensive soil and nutrient management, precision nutrient application, odor reduction, lagoon management, managed rotational grazing, windbreaks, buffers, stream improvements, and etc. all practices that are profitable for the producer, good for the land, and good for the public.

Such legislation should be voluntary, in addition to and separate from the Farm Bill due in 2002. A separate Conservation Bill would bring into focus agriculture's importance to the environment. A Conservation Bill at this time would move money to the countryside at a time it is badly needed, but more importantly help production agriculture address the concerns of the environmental community and avoid the temptation or desire to regulate. USDA and a scaled back NRCS would have problems delivering such a comprehensive program and may have to look to state and local conservation agencies and private industry for help to service us producers. NRCS does not have the experienced staff and talent we had to administer the '85 and '90 Farm Programs.

If we could get in place a "Freedom to Conserve" coupled with a good crop insurance package let's call "Freedom to Survive" we could avoid the temptation many have to change "Freedom to Farm". Let's give it time - it has our foreign competition worried and we producers enjoy the freedom to manage and compete. A Freedom to Conserve could cost up to six billion per year in the out years. Expensive but the taxpayer will be getting direct benefits from soil, water, and air quality and economic stability in the countryside. Conservation stewardship payments are also permitted under the NAFTA, GATT, and WTO rules.

I challenge Congress to consider a Conservation Bill that would encourage producers to sequester carbon. The time is now. Enforcement of the Clean Air Act is starting and carbon will be valuable. I'm told twenty dollars per ton is a reasonable price The EPA and most environmentalists favor carbon trading so industry, especially utilities will finance the carbon reduction. The issue for agricultural producers is whether we trade our carbon sequestering potential on the market or do we get our rewards thru stewardship payments from the public. However, we producers should be careful - remember the market says those who pollute (emit carbon) will pay those who conserve (sequester); that could be some of us! Of course, over time the market will prevail - that's our system. The public may even decide greenhouse gasses, global warming, etc. are not worth the price.

However, a comprehensive, reward based, stewardship conservation program is good investment for producers, consumers, and the environment and it will sequester carbon. Increase in carbon reserves of the nation's farmland through adoption of conservation tillage provides numerous ancillary benefits to society and the world community. Reduction in water runoff and soil erosion decreases risks of non-point source pollution,

reduces siltation of waterways and reservoirs, decreases the risks of flooding, and reduces emission of greenhouse gases. Society owes it to farmers for taking personal risks while benefitting humanity. My hope is we start with a stewardship program and give our scientists time to research the long term solutions to the public's real and perceived global concerns.

Thank you again for the opportunity to submit this testimony.

William J. Richards

Farmer and former Chief of the Soil Conservation Service in the Bush Administration