The U.S. Department of Agriculture reportedly rejected a request by multiple agricultural groups to ease Conservation Reserve Program obligations to mitigate food shortages anticipated from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The seven agricultural groups voiced concerns of global food shortages because Ukraine provides 12 percent of the world’s wheat, 15 percent of its corn and barley and half of the world’s sunflower oil, according to their March 23 letter. Rationing among grain end users could occur if Ukraine’s agriculture goes offline, the letter said.
“Production on those acres would be marginal at best, and there is no realistic way to convert all CRP acres into cropland in 2022,” USDA Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack wrote in his March 31 response. “It is critical to point out that if we allow the tillage of CRP acres, the marginal-at-best benefit to crop production will be coupled with a significant and detrimental impact on producers’ efforts to mitigate climate change and maintain the long-term health of their land.”
Under the CRP, the government pays agricultural producers to keep environmentally sensitive cropland from being used in an effort to improve the health of the land, Politico reported.
The agricultural groups’ letter cited 2017 data that showed 26 percent of land enrolled in the CRP was “prime farmland.” Vilsack did not refute that claim in his letter, but he cited data from 2020 that showed that only 1.3 percent of prime farmland is controlled by the CRP.
In late March, President Joe Biden noted food shortages may be a possibility.
"With regard to food shortage...it's gonna be real," the Blaze quoted in a March 24 post.
From February to March, food prices jumped 13 percent to a new record high, Reuters reported April 8, citing data from the U.N. food agency. The February numbers were already a record of themselves. The vegetable oil index surged 23 percent, which was also a record high.
Fox News Host Tucker Carlson drew attention to Chinese ownership of US farmland in a segment hosted April 5. During the segment, Tucker noted the Chinese have been buying up farmland, now owning "more than $2 billion worth of farmland in the United States."
Rep. Dan Newhouse, as a guest on Carlson's show, spoke about the danger of allowing China to own domestic means of producing food. The congressman called China a "threat" and said he has “legislation that would go a long way to stopping China from starting an agricultural monopoly in the United States of America.”
