PLC & NCBA Join With Conservation Groups To Comment On USDA Funding

The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD), Partnership of Rangeland Trusts (PORT), the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) joined the Public Lands Council (PLC), the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and American Sheep Industry (ASI) in submitting comments to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on an interim final rule on the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). The groups urged USDA to support ranching and conservation in the west by making EQIP available on both private and public lands. From an environmental standpoint, public and private lands in the west cannot be distinguished. “EQIP is one of the most important and widely used conservation programs to which our members have access,” said Skye Krebs, PLC President and rancher from Ione, Oregon. “The ability for ranchers to make improvements on public lands while benefiting their operation is important to the greater Western landscape.” Although EQIP is principally intended to serve production agriculture and address natural resource concerns on private lands, in many western states, production agriculture occurs on private, state and federal lands. “Federal permittees control more than 110 million acres of the most biologically diverse private lands in the West,” Krebs explains...cattlenetwork