Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 649: How WE Can Help Pass the Biggest Conservation Bill of the Year with Whit Fosburgh and Aaron Field

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Ep. 649: How WE Can Help Pass the Biggest Conservation Bill of the Year with Whit Fosburgh and Aaron Field · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods. Present it by First Light, creating proven
0:08
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand saddler blind, First Light,
0:12
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:18
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
0:21
Speaker 2: Mark Kenyon, and this week on the show, we're joined
0:23
Speaker 2: by Wit Fossburg and Aaron Field from TRCP to discuss
0:27
Speaker 2: the most impactful conservation bill of the year and how
0:30
Speaker 2: we can help get it pasted. All right, welcome to
0:43
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light,
0:48
Speaker 2: and this week on the show, as you might expect,
0:51
Speaker 2: we are continuing our Conservation Month series and our topic
0:55
Speaker 2: today is a very specific one. We're going to discuss
0:59
Speaker 2: one specific piece of legislation, the biggest conservation bill actually
1:05
Speaker 2: of the entire year, and if drafted and passed in
1:10
Speaker 2: the way that our guests today believe that it should be,
1:13
Speaker 2: this bill is going to direct billions that's billions, with
1:16
Speaker 2: a B billions of dollars every year to conservation programs
1:22
Speaker 2: that will get better habitat on the ground for wildlife.
1:25
Speaker 2: It's going to help pay for programs that open up
1:28
Speaker 2: millions of private acres to public hunting access, and so
1:33
Speaker 2: so much more. This bill is the twenty twenty three
1:37
Speaker 2: Farm Bill. It's a title that at first glance, you know,
1:40
Speaker 2: maybe doesn't suggest great things for wildlife in wild places.
1:44
Speaker 2: But by the end of today's episode, I promise you
1:47
Speaker 2: will understand just how important the Farm Bill is to hunting, fishing,
1:52
Speaker 2: and conservation, and you'll understand the specific details in the
1:57
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three edition that we hunters need to understand
2:01
Speaker 2: and advocate for. So our guests today to help tackle
2:04
Speaker 2: all this. Both come from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
2:09
Speaker 2: and they are with Fossberg, the President and CEO of
2:13
Speaker 2: the TRCP, and Aaron Field, the director of Private Lands Conservation.
2:18
Speaker 2: So today is going to be very action oriented.
2:22
Speaker 1: You know.
2:22
Speaker 2: Compare this back to our first episode in the series,
2:24
Speaker 2: which was high level kind of philosophy. You know, what's
2:27
Speaker 2: going on with wildlife all across the world, why are
2:31
Speaker 2: things like this happening? What does that mean for us?
2:33
Speaker 2: And then last week in our second episode, we had
2:35
Speaker 2: this deep dive into these specific trends and issues impacting
2:39
Speaker 2: just white tilt deer, and now today We're going to
2:42
Speaker 2: get even more nitty gritty by talking about this one
2:45
Speaker 2: specific law that could make a very real, very meaningful
2:50
Speaker 2: difference for wildlife, wild places, hunting, fishing, and all that
2:55
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So we're going to get some very
2:57
Speaker 2: concrete action items today to help make this happen. It's
3:01
Speaker 2: going to be a roadmap for you know, what we
3:03
Speaker 2: need to understand about the twenty twenty three farm bell
3:05
Speaker 2: and what we can actually do to make sure the
3:08
Speaker 2: best version possible is past. Something's going to help you
3:12
Speaker 2: and your deer hunting and you're you know, hunting properties
3:15
Speaker 2: and all the other things that kind of ripple out
3:17
Speaker 2: from that. That's the plan today. But before that, I
3:22
Speaker 2: do want to point out that if you're listening to
3:24
Speaker 2: this on launch day or somewhere around it, you know,
3:26
Speaker 2: April twentieth of twenty twenty three or so, you should
3:30
Speaker 2: know that this coming Saturday, April twenty second is Earth Day.
3:36
Speaker 2: And I don't know what your take is on Earth Day.
3:39
Speaker 2: I don't know. It was something that I was always
3:41
Speaker 2: aware of growing up. I don't know if it was
3:43
Speaker 2: something that I always quote unquote celebrated or participated in,
3:47
Speaker 2: but it was something that I think was always a
3:48
Speaker 2: good excuse to, you know, talk about some kind of
3:51
Speaker 2: environmental cause, go out and pick up some trash or
3:55
Speaker 2: something during school. That's kind of what Earth Day meant
3:58
Speaker 2: to me, maybe as a kid growing up, but now
4:01
Speaker 2: as an adult, as someone who you know, is pretty
4:05
Speaker 2: active and interested in this whole conservation sphere of stuff
4:11
Speaker 2: in the world. I guess the more I think about
4:13
Speaker 2: Earth Day, the more I think about this being an
4:16
Speaker 2: event or a holiday, or something that we hunters and
4:20
Speaker 2: anglers can claim as our own. This doesn't have to
4:23
Speaker 2: be something that's just you know, talked about and participated
4:27
Speaker 2: in by folks driving a Prius in San Francisco. This
4:31
Speaker 2: could be something that me driving a Ram fifteen hundred
4:36
Speaker 2: that likes to hunt and fish. I can participate in
4:38
Speaker 2: Earth Day, and I should be excited about it just
4:42
Speaker 2: as much as anyone else, because I think history would indicate.
4:45
Speaker 2: I think it backs up the claim that hunters and
4:48
Speaker 2: anglers are the original conservationists, some of the original most
4:51
Speaker 2: impactful environmentalists. This is our day just as much as
4:55
Speaker 2: anyone else's. And with that being said, you know, I personally,
4:59
Speaker 2: at least I am excited to get out there this
5:01
Speaker 2: Saturday and get involved. We have our second event of
5:06
Speaker 2: our Working for Wildlife Tour coming up Saturday, April twenty second,
5:11
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, up in Michigan. So if you live
5:14
Speaker 2: in my home state of Michigan, I would love to
5:17
Speaker 2: see you up in the northern part of the MIT.
5:20
Speaker 2: We are going to be building small game habitat, creating
5:24
Speaker 2: brush piles, maintaining wildlife openings, doing some really cool stuff
5:28
Speaker 2: on some public land up there in Kalkaska. You can
5:31
Speaker 2: get the full details about that and how to register
5:35
Speaker 2: and where to show up all that if you just
5:40
Speaker 2: Google Working for Wildlife Tour and then you'll find the
5:44
Speaker 2: links there to the registration page all the details need.
5:48
Speaker 2: I think it's from nine thirty to two, with partnership
5:52
Speaker 2: or in partnership with MUCC. I already told you what
5:56
Speaker 2: we're doing. I'm going to bring T shirts that I'll
5:58
Speaker 2: be giving away to the first twenty five volunteers out there.
6:01
Speaker 2: There's also going to be a social get together at
6:04
Speaker 2: the Bear Lake Inn afterwards. I think that's like from
6:07
Speaker 2: three to six, give or take somewhere in that ballpark.
6:10
Speaker 2: We'll be getting some food, hanging out talking. I'm excited
6:13
Speaker 2: to meet a bunch of you, hear your hunting and
6:15
Speaker 2: fishing stories, see some pictures, and make some great wildlife
6:19
Speaker 2: habitat too. But you know that's not all. There are
6:22
Speaker 2: also events similar to this, you know, all over the country.
6:26
Speaker 2: So if you're not in Michigan, don't feel bad. There
6:30
Speaker 2: are things you can do get outside and participate in
6:34
Speaker 2: earth that. And I did just a little bit of
6:35
Speaker 2: googling and I found a handful of different things very quickly.
6:39
Speaker 2: Take for example, if you are a backcountry hunters and
6:43
Speaker 2: anglers kind of person, there is a wood duck box
6:46
Speaker 2: building event over in Brunswick, Vermont, this Saturday. If you're
6:51
Speaker 2: down in Ohio, there is a tree planting event in
6:54
Speaker 2: the Wayne National Forest in Nelsonville, Ohio. Here's some stuff
6:59
Speaker 2: being down by Trout Unlimited. They've got a bunch of
7:01
Speaker 2: different river cleanup events all over the country, every different
7:06
Speaker 2: neck of the woods. There's one I just saw in
7:08
Speaker 2: Mianis River in Connecticut. There's another one on the Harpeth
7:12
Speaker 2: River in Tennessee uh Pheasants forever. If you're an upland
7:15
Speaker 2: kind of person, they've got some habitat work days going on.
7:18
Speaker 2: I saw one and have a land Kansas. I saw
7:20
Speaker 2: one in Worthington, Minnesota. So do a little bit of
7:24
Speaker 2: online searching with whatever organization you enjoy working with the most,
7:29
Speaker 2: or you can just search, like you know, Earth Day
7:31
Speaker 2: events in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and there's gonna be a
7:35
Speaker 2: whole bunch of different things pop up. My you know.
7:39
Speaker 2: Encouragement to you is to get out there, have some
7:41
Speaker 2: fun with it, give back a little bit, but most
7:44
Speaker 2: of all, I think it's just gonna be a good time.
7:46
Speaker 2: I've been preaching this over the last few weeks, so sorry,
7:49
Speaker 2: same old message, but uh man, it's just true. It
7:54
Speaker 2: is fun to be outside, to do some good work
7:57
Speaker 2: on the land, and to do it with some other
7:59
Speaker 2: people that enjoy wildlife, that enjoy hunting, that enjoy fishing,
8:04
Speaker 2: that enjoy the great outdoors. What more could you ask for? People?
8:09
Speaker 2: That's just the good life. So I hope to see
8:12
Speaker 2: you this Saturday, April twenty second in Michigan, and if not,
8:16
Speaker 2: can't wait to see your patures on social media and
8:19
Speaker 2: to hear your stories about all the other good stuff
8:21
Speaker 2: that's going on in your own region. So with all
8:24
Speaker 2: that out of the way, let's get into this conversation
8:27
Speaker 2: about the twenty twenty three Farm Bill. I know sometimes
8:31
Speaker 2: these legislation related episodes maybe aren't the most I don't know, riveting,
8:38
Speaker 2: but it's something that really matters, and it's something that
8:42
Speaker 2: we actually can have an impact on. We as citizens
8:46
Speaker 2: in America, have a voice and an opportunity to influence
8:50
Speaker 2: our representatives in Washington, DC and in this case, get
8:54
Speaker 2: some very serious funding for programs that make a real
9:00
Speaker 2: tangible difference on the ground. So let's make it happen. People,
9:04
Speaker 2: Let's get this bill in its best possible version for
9:07
Speaker 2: wildlife past and today. Wit and Aaron are going to
9:10
Speaker 2: help us understand exactly how we can do that. So
9:13
Speaker 2: without further ado, here we go. All right with me
9:17
Speaker 2: now on the show, I've got Witt Fossburg and Aaron Field. Gentlemen,
9:22
Speaker 2: thank you so much for being here.
9:24
Speaker 3: Great to be on, Mark.
9:27
Speaker 4: Thanks for having us Mark.
9:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, I'm going to put a challenge
9:32
Speaker 2: to the both of you, which is that we need
9:36
Speaker 2: to make a farm bill podcast riveting and entertaining. Okay,
9:41
Speaker 2: can you do that? Erin, We've had Wit on here before.
9:44
Speaker 2: I know what you can bring the goods, but Erin
9:46
Speaker 2: can you can you bring the goods on this one.
9:49
Speaker 4: You know, if I had to choose two adjectives to
9:52
Speaker 4: describe myself, it'd be riveting and entertaining.
9:54
Speaker 2: So okay, yeah, we can do it perfect. So then
9:59
Speaker 2: I think we're good shape the conversation today. I think,
10:03
Speaker 2: you know, while there's a lot of acronyms, there's a
10:06
Speaker 2: lot of jargon. Maybe sometimes when you get into this
10:08
Speaker 2: kind of legislation, it seems like this is really really important.
10:13
Speaker 2: This is a conversation that's worth having for a number
10:17
Speaker 2: of reasons. So I guess the first thing, though, I
10:18
Speaker 2: want to kind of lay a foundation for folks. If
10:21
Speaker 2: people don't know why in the world a deer hunting
10:25
Speaker 2: podcast is talking about a farm bill. Let's get that covered.
10:29
Speaker 2: So what do you want to maybe lay us a
10:31
Speaker 2: quick ground grounding on what the farm bill is and why.
10:36
Speaker 2: I think I just heard you a couple of days
10:37
Speaker 2: mentioned this is one of the largest pieces of conservation
10:40
Speaker 2: legislation around it all.
10:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's actually is the largest single conservation legislation
10:48
Speaker 3: in the US federal policy. And if you think about,
10:52
Speaker 3: you know, the way the US is set up, if
10:54
Speaker 3: you take out alask seventy of the land in the
10:57
Speaker 3: continental US is privately owned, and about half of that
11:01
Speaker 3: is an agriculture of forestry raising in the traditional agricultural practices,
11:08
Speaker 3: and the majority of honting in this country half is
11:11
Speaker 3: on private land. We have six hundred and forty million
11:13
Speaker 3: acres of public lands, which especially for the West, do
11:16
Speaker 3: you do a lot of your honey on, But in
11:19
Speaker 3: the East and the Midwest, even in parts of the West,
11:22
Speaker 3: a lot of that honey is happening on private lands.
11:25
Speaker 3: And you know, the farm Bill was created back in
11:28
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty five with the Conservation Title, the modern conservation title,
11:33
Speaker 3: when there was a real crisis in you know, the
11:36
Speaker 3: agg in farm country. I got a lot of small
11:39
Speaker 3: farmers going under is where you had farm aid and
11:43
Speaker 3: all that, and it surreally Congress created this basically to
11:47
Speaker 3: pay farmers not to farm, and that was the Conservation
11:51
Speaker 3: Reserve program. That's when that started. And it turned out
11:54
Speaker 3: there were so many ansilary benefits to instead of just
11:58
Speaker 3: not farming and keeping people on the land that you know,
12:02
Speaker 3: this became really a major part of the farm bell
12:05
Speaker 3: and it grew from those early parts of the eighties
12:07
Speaker 3: and even going back after the dust Bowl We've had
12:10
Speaker 3: some basic farm bell programs, but today it's a six
12:14
Speaker 3: billion dollar program annually and there are you know, one
12:18
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million plus, you know, acres out there.
12:21
Speaker 3: Their role in the conservation, you know, basically conservation you know,
12:24
Speaker 3: titled the Farm Bill one of these other different programs,
12:28
Speaker 3: and really these are all voluntary programs, so it's very different.
12:32
Speaker 3: You think about the traditional environmental laws where they're regulatory,
12:35
Speaker 3: you know, like the Clean Water Act and Clean Interact.
12:38
Speaker 3: A lot of that is based on which you cannot do,
12:40
Speaker 3: and the Farm Bill is a different paradigm here as
12:43
Speaker 3: we're looking at incentives for private lenders that want to
12:46
Speaker 3: do the right thing. And you know, it's been incredibly
12:50
Speaker 3: successful and very popular in farm country. And if you
12:54
Speaker 3: want white tailed deer, you hunt seasands, you hunt ducks,
12:58
Speaker 3: you fish for trout. It makes a big difference in
13:01
Speaker 3: what you do. And it also has other benefits. For example,
13:05
Speaker 3: to accept the CRP a conservation reserve program, for example,
13:08
Speaker 3: is a long waterways. You're also helping water quality, water quantity,
13:15
Speaker 3: and you know, so identefits beyond justicial wildlife.
13:19
Speaker 4: Yeah.
13:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned that fifty percent of the United States
13:24
Speaker 2: is is crop line or pasture range, different things like that.
13:28
Speaker 2: I saw one of the stats when I was doing
13:31
Speaker 2: some reading up on your website that of that fifty
13:34
Speaker 2: percent of the land, those that amount of our country
13:38
Speaker 2: is in the hands of less than two percent of
13:40
Speaker 2: our citizens. So it's kind of a profound influence that
13:44
Speaker 2: these folks that steer those lands have on the conservation
13:48
Speaker 2: of our you know, so much of the public impacts
13:52
Speaker 2: of that land and the wildlife it fosters. So, Aaron,
13:56
Speaker 2: would you add anything to what Witch said to kind
13:58
Speaker 2: of give us the groundwork on why this thing matters.
14:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think we covered it well. I would
14:08
Speaker 4: double back onto that comment about these are voluntary, incentive
14:12
Speaker 4: based programs and landowners really like them. Just to give
14:17
Speaker 4: you a couple of statistics, there's the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.
14:23
Speaker 4: Only about six percent of applications to that program by
14:27
Speaker 4: landowners actually get funded. Another one, Environmental Quality and centice program.
14:33
Speaker 4: Only thirty percent qualified applications get funded through that program
14:38
Speaker 4: right now. So there's a whole bunch of landowners, a
14:40
Speaker 4: whole bunch of farmers and ranchers and forest landowners who
14:44
Speaker 4: wants to use these programs to do right by the
14:47
Speaker 4: land and can't do it right now because we're not
14:49
Speaker 4: funding it.
14:51
Speaker 2: What's the scale of some of this? I get maybe
14:54
Speaker 2: you said it. Do you say one hundred and thirty
14:56
Speaker 2: some million acres or something that's enrolled in one of
14:58
Speaker 2: these programs. Is that I hear that right?
15:02
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it's somewhere around hundred and sixty Yeah,
15:04
Speaker 3: I thought eron, you may have a more exact number
15:06
Speaker 3: than I do. But it's a significant chuck of the ground.
15:10
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's it's it's a real noticeable, impactful amount
15:16
Speaker 2: of you know, landscape that right now has healthy wildlife
15:20
Speaker 2: habitat on it in some form, rather than what it
15:23
Speaker 2: might have otherwise, which would have been a monoculture or
15:25
Speaker 2: a dirt field or something that likely would not be
15:28
Speaker 2: nearly as good for hunters, would not be as good
15:32
Speaker 2: for the stream quality and fish in those adjacent areas.
15:37
Speaker 2: Is there is there any kind of trend that we've
15:40
Speaker 2: seen in recent years when it comes to how the
15:43
Speaker 2: farm bill is progressing. You mentioned it, you know, started
15:45
Speaker 2: back in the dust bowl with some early farm programs,
15:48
Speaker 2: then it was kind of codified in the eighties with
15:50
Speaker 2: the with the current farm bill, as we call it now.
15:54
Speaker 2: In the subsequent years, it's an every five year program
15:57
Speaker 2: it gets reauthorized, and there seems to be a whole
15:59
Speaker 2: bunch of change that come every half decade. What has
16:03
Speaker 2: the history been, Aaron as far as where this farm
16:06
Speaker 2: bill is trending? Are we going in a good direction
16:08
Speaker 2: or have programs been getting cut and we're seeing the
16:12
Speaker 2: impact get you know, dwindling down over time. What have
16:14
Speaker 2: we seen and where does it feel like we're going now?
16:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the twenty fourteen Farm bill was pretty tough
16:22
Speaker 4: for these programs, several cuts. Twenty eighteen was technically budget neutral,
16:30
Speaker 4: but once you factor in inflation, that ends up being
16:33
Speaker 4: a cut to programs over time. We are expecting right
16:38
Speaker 4: now that this current bill that folks are working on
16:41
Speaker 4: is going to be at least close to budget neutral,
16:44
Speaker 4: which again comes down to a cut once you factory
16:47
Speaker 4: in inflation. We did see a big boost to these
16:51
Speaker 4: programs through a reconciliation bill at the end of last year,
16:55
Speaker 4: ended up putting about twenty billion dollars into many of
16:58
Speaker 4: the farm bill conservation programs that we like to see.
17:03
Speaker 4: And so sort of the mid range trend has been negative,
17:07
Speaker 4: but we've got a big chunk of opportunity that we
17:10
Speaker 4: haven't had in a long time in these programs right now.
17:13
Speaker 2: Okay, so so that's part of this this new title
17:19
Speaker 2: to funding that essentially correct me if I'm wrong here,
17:22
Speaker 2: but if I understand right, there's a doubling of conservation
17:26
Speaker 2: funding for this year's farm bill. Is that right?
17:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, technically it's not farm bill funding, but it's private
17:35
Speaker 3: land conservation funding. I mean, you know, it's only farm
17:38
Speaker 3: bell funding that passes through a farm bill. So the
17:41
Speaker 3: semantics here, but essentially what we've done is, you know,
17:44
Speaker 3: double the conservation title the Farm Bill due to the
17:47
Speaker 3: you know, the programs that Aaron talked about the past,
17:50
Speaker 3: you know, this fall. There's one exception to that, you know,
17:53
Speaker 3: the Conservation Reserve Program because of the you know, the
17:57
Speaker 3: weird rules by which the reconsiliation was passed, it was
18:01
Speaker 3: not included in it. So essentially you're going to see
18:04
Speaker 3: big additions to the other core programs of the conformation
18:07
Speaker 3: titled the Farm Bill, but not to CRP, which has
18:10
Speaker 3: really been going through some tough time in recent years.
18:14
Speaker 3: We'll finally seeing an uptick in CRP enrollment, but it's
18:18
Speaker 3: not nearly where we'd like it to be right now.
18:21
Speaker 2: Okay, So one more question before we kind of get
18:25
Speaker 2: into some of the nitty gritty, because I do want
18:27
Speaker 2: to dive into, you know, the actual programs, the actual
18:32
Speaker 2: stuff this is getting on the ground. But one thing
18:35
Speaker 2: that's always, I guess, kind of perplexing I think for
18:39
Speaker 2: a lot of even for me who follows the stuff
18:41
Speaker 2: pretty closely, is what the you know, what actually has
18:44
Speaker 2: to go on behind the scenes to make this stuff happen.
18:48
Speaker 2: I always lean on my elementary school education and the
18:54
Speaker 2: schoolhouse rock you know what a bill whatever that bill
18:57
Speaker 2: song was. That's basically the extent of my background of
19:01
Speaker 2: how a bill makes it to Capitol Hill. Can you
19:04
Speaker 2: walk us through what actually is going to be happening
19:07
Speaker 2: between now and the date when this will be authorized
19:12
Speaker 2: for twenty twenty three, What conversations are having, what committee
19:16
Speaker 2: hearings are having, what actually is going to happen.
19:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll jump in here, and then Aaron, if I've
19:22
Speaker 3: missed anything, feel free to elaborate. But as you mentioned
19:26
Speaker 3: that every farm bill passes essentially every five years, give
19:29
Speaker 3: or take, and you know, so you and then there's
19:33
Speaker 3: the real challenge that implementation. So our community is engaged
19:36
Speaker 3: at two different levels. So as we're gearing up to
19:39
Speaker 3: this farm bill, as previous farm bills, we assemble the
19:43
Speaker 3: overall community of hunting and fishing groups and is something we
19:46
Speaker 3: call our Agriculture Wildlife Working Group and that's twenty six
19:51
Speaker 3: twenty seven different groups that meet regularly. Aaron supervises that
19:56
Speaker 3: group and herds the cats and we come up with
19:59
Speaker 3: a recommendation from our community what we want to see
20:02
Speaker 3: in the conservation title the farm bill, and then you know,
20:05
Speaker 3: we and the other groups that have lobbying capacity will
20:08
Speaker 3: make sure that you know that happens. Hearings are going
20:12
Speaker 3: on already on this and a lot of the way
20:15
Speaker 3: it works is they're going to be changes made in
20:17
Speaker 3: the program. You will see what are known as marker bills,
20:20
Speaker 3: so individual, you know, chunks of legislation that will get
20:24
Speaker 3: dropped in to be discussed that may be you know,
20:26
Speaker 3: something like the Conservation and SERVEI program and what we
20:29
Speaker 3: can do to make it better, you know, both for
20:32
Speaker 3: the landowner as well as for the environment. And you know,
20:35
Speaker 3: so you know there is a built in to do
20:37
Speaker 3: that right now that you know, we'll see some hearings
20:41
Speaker 3: on there are other marker bills on various other aspects
20:44
Speaker 3: of the farm bill, and then the committee, the Agriculture Committee,
20:48
Speaker 3: and the House and the Senate. We'll do hearings in
20:50
Speaker 3: d C. And they'll do field hearings around the country.
20:53
Speaker 3: The have the input on you know, these marker bills
20:56
Speaker 3: or the overall program in general. And then in theory,
21:00
Speaker 3: a bill passes and then we have implementation. And there's
21:04
Speaker 3: a major challenge of the implementation too, and so there
21:07
Speaker 3: has to be a technical assistance money. There has to
21:11
Speaker 3: be real engagements from groups like Centence, Forever Bucks, Unlimited
21:15
Speaker 3: Rough Grouse Society, the groups that have on the ground
21:17
Speaker 3: that really work in partnership with the agencies and with
21:21
Speaker 3: the landowners to get conservation and going on the ground.
21:26
Speaker 3: And also that process sends recommendations back up to us
21:30
Speaker 3: in Washington to saying, hey, this is working really well,
21:33
Speaker 3: but this isn't working so well. We would love to
21:35
Speaker 3: see some changes either on the administrative side as this
21:38
Speaker 3: gets implemented or necessary as we think about the next
21:42
Speaker 3: farm bill. Here are things that legislatively need to be
21:44
Speaker 3: fixed for this program to work better so it works
21:48
Speaker 3: both directions from DC down and then from the field
21:51
Speaker 3: back up to us and it gets evolves every five years, Aaron,
21:55
Speaker 3: if I covered that about right, Yeah, that's.
21:59
Speaker 4: That's the great summary. The addition I would make, I guess,
22:02
Speaker 4: is taking a step back to actually coming up with
22:05
Speaker 4: this list of priorities mentioned. We've got a large partner group.
22:11
Speaker 4: That group come together for a period of months and
22:16
Speaker 4: basically organizations would propose an item for our farm build
22:22
Speaker 4: platform and it would be discussed, to be debated, it
22:26
Speaker 4: would be vetted. If say a group proposed something that
22:30
Speaker 4: would be great for trout, but it wouldn't be good
22:33
Speaker 4: for you know, prairie grouse, that item wouldn't make the platform.
22:38
Speaker 4: So it's really just it's a great opportunity to bring
22:41
Speaker 4: all of these different groups together, get them talking, get
22:45
Speaker 4: them everybody on the same page as to what needs
22:47
Speaker 4: to happen in these programs to make them work for
22:50
Speaker 4: fish and wildlife as well as landowners, and then we
22:54
Speaker 4: can take that next step that was describing where we're
22:56
Speaker 4: getting it up on the hill and getting it paid
22:58
Speaker 4: attention to.
23:00
Speaker 3: So who and Mark, if you go back to really
23:02
Speaker 3: part of the reason that Tirasity was created was to
23:06
Speaker 3: make sure that we brought the community together on issues
23:08
Speaker 3: like that because in the old days, you know, the
23:10
Speaker 3: commodity groups to go into a room, they would come
23:12
Speaker 3: out with a farm bill position and they would stick
23:15
Speaker 3: to it the entire way through negotiations. Our community would
23:18
Speaker 3: go into a room, come out the position, and as
23:20
Speaker 3: soon as the going got tough, we would you break
23:23
Speaker 3: apart like a cup of quail, trying to cut the
23:25
Speaker 3: best deal they could for their critter. And as a result,
23:28
Speaker 3: you know, we were just we kept losing, and really
23:32
Speaker 3: was two thousand and eight Farm Bill where you know,
23:34
Speaker 3: we finally the community came together and locked arms and
23:37
Speaker 3: stayed locked and that has really been the ascension of
23:41
Speaker 3: the modern conservation titled the farm Bill.
23:44
Speaker 2: Okay, so, so who are these or can you give
23:47
Speaker 2: me some examples of who these folks or organizations are
23:50
Speaker 2: that have helped you guys put together this set of
23:52
Speaker 2: priorities that you're taking to the hill. You mentioned some
23:56
Speaker 2: yeah organizations in passing, but who had a seat at
24:01
Speaker 2: this table?
24:03
Speaker 3: So I'm not going to read through the whole twenty
24:05
Speaker 3: seven groups. But the big ones are, you know with
24:08
Speaker 3: Duck Sun Limited, fens for Over, Trotto Limited, the Association
24:11
Speaker 3: of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Turkey Federation, National Deer Association,
24:18
Speaker 3: you know, and you know a multitude of others. Land
24:21
Speaker 3: trust community is involved with that because things like the
24:25
Speaker 3: conservation easement programs in the farm Bill are really implemented
24:29
Speaker 3: by the land trust community. So it is you know,
24:32
Speaker 3: Aaron might missing anybody big in there.
24:35
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's a it's a long list in
24:38
Speaker 4: which right not to try to read through the whole thing,
24:40
Speaker 4: but I just say that there is expertise in each
24:43
Speaker 4: of these groups in the different programs. If we had
24:47
Speaker 4: to rely just on my knowledge, we would have a
24:50
Speaker 4: much shorter list of priorities here and it would be
24:52
Speaker 4: a lot a lot less useful. So we've got a
24:55
Speaker 4: great group in the Egg and Wildlife Working Group who
24:58
Speaker 4: put this in first. You know, folks can go on
25:01
Speaker 4: our website TRC dot org and you know, just search
25:03
Speaker 4: farm bill and you'll see, you know, the basics about
25:06
Speaker 4: how the program works. You'll see our recommendations of the
25:09
Speaker 4: twenty twenty three Farm Bill. You'll see the groups that
25:12
Speaker 4: find our recommendations that went up to Congress. So a
25:15
Speaker 4: lot of that will be you know, anybody who's.
25:17
Speaker 3: You know that curious can go and get all the details.
25:20
Speaker 2: Okay, So when I when I think about this upcoming,
25:38
Speaker 2: you know, moving into this year and the authorization of
25:41
Speaker 2: this bill, there's a number of different priorities that I
25:43
Speaker 2: know you guys have listed out as part of the
25:45
Speaker 2: process working with this group. But before we get into
25:49
Speaker 2: what those opportunities and priority areas are, I'm curious if
25:52
Speaker 2: there's any overarching threats, Like if there's a bunch of
25:56
Speaker 2: things we want, but is there anything that we're worried
25:58
Speaker 2: about losing or having slashed? Is there anything like that
26:02
Speaker 2: that's looming over this process that we have to make
26:05
Speaker 2: sure we defend against. What does anything come to mind
26:08
Speaker 2: when I bring that side of things up.
26:10
Speaker 3: Well, I think that one of the big challenges we're
26:13
Speaker 3: going to have is, you know that new money you
26:16
Speaker 3: know that came through the you know, the Inflation Reduction Act,
26:19
Speaker 3: the Reconciliation Bill, the Comment Bill. You know, how do
26:21
Speaker 3: we make that part of the permanent baseline of the
26:24
Speaker 3: Farm Bill moving forward? I mean it's you know that
26:27
Speaker 3: twenty billion dollars is great, is going to make a
26:30
Speaker 3: huge difference in programs for the next few years, but
26:34
Speaker 3: you know, really that auto represents a new baseline for
26:37
Speaker 3: that farm Dell because as Aaron mentioned before, there is
26:40
Speaker 3: twice as much demand out there for landowners. They're raising
26:43
Speaker 3: our hand that want to be in this program, then
26:46
Speaker 3: there is money to pay for him. We finally solve
26:48
Speaker 3: that in the short term, but we want to make
26:51
Speaker 3: sure that doesn't slide backwards and we're having a bunch
26:54
Speaker 3: of land that goes into conservation that falls out of
26:57
Speaker 3: it five years from now. And you know, I think that,
27:01
Speaker 3: you know, that's just not fair to the landowner and
27:03
Speaker 3: must be something clear here. Nobody is enrolling their best
27:07
Speaker 3: corn and soybean fields into conservation programs. It is the
27:11
Speaker 3: marginal lands that may fail every other year, every third year,
27:16
Speaker 3: that really aren't the best for farming to begin with.
27:19
Speaker 3: Those are the ones that are getting enrolled. So you know,
27:22
Speaker 3: we're not I mean, I am not worried about us
27:25
Speaker 3: not being able to feed the world by entering more
27:27
Speaker 3: land into farm conservation. In fact, we're giving basically more
27:31
Speaker 3: benefits to the farmers, you know, more security, more conscious
27:35
Speaker 3: what they can do long term. So I think it
27:37
Speaker 3: actually enhances the farm security.
27:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, how likely is this is? This idea of being
27:43
Speaker 2: able to make this the new baseline. Is this like
27:45
Speaker 2: a pie in the sky cross our fingers, wish and
27:47
Speaker 2: dream or is that a realistic possibility with the right pressure.
27:52
Speaker 3: I think with the right pressure, I think it's a
27:53
Speaker 3: realistic possibility. I mean, it's not a slam dunk by
27:56
Speaker 3: any means. But in part of our job, this is
27:59
Speaker 3: convinced risk that this makes sense on multiple levels. It
28:02
Speaker 3: makes sense from the landowner, it makes sense for the environment,
28:05
Speaker 3: It makes sense for the hunters and anglers out there.
28:08
Speaker 3: If you care about climate change, this is the way
28:10
Speaker 3: to sequester a whole bunch of carbon. And you know so,
28:14
Speaker 3: I mean, and it's all voluntary. So I think that
28:17
Speaker 3: we can make that case. And I think that you know,
28:19
Speaker 3: the folks who don't like government overreach, you know, this
28:22
Speaker 3: is not a program to target. You know, there are
28:24
Speaker 3: a lot of other more mandatory programs you know that
28:27
Speaker 3: in the farm maybe not in the farm bell but
28:29
Speaker 3: in certainly Western the way government works that ought to
28:32
Speaker 3: have their ire and not these voluntary programs that pretty
28:35
Speaker 3: much are win wins for everybody.
28:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's your what's your read on the impact of
28:42
Speaker 2: the hunter and angler community voice on these kinds of things?
28:47
Speaker 2: I mean we were chatting the other day about how,
28:49
Speaker 2: you know, on typical environmental things, there's going to be
28:55
Speaker 2: there's almost a superpower maybe that hunter, hunters and anglers
28:58
Speaker 2: have because we can speak to a side of the
29:01
Speaker 2: aisle maybe that isn't typically as interested in this kind
29:04
Speaker 2: of conversation. Can you expand on that at all? Is
29:08
Speaker 2: there any truth to that? You know what?
29:10
Speaker 4: Well?
29:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Mark, I mean I think that you know,
29:15
Speaker 3: first of all, I mean we end up being very
29:17
Speaker 3: aligned with private land. In our community. They pretty much
29:19
Speaker 3: all hunting fish and you know, the folks that hunt
29:23
Speaker 3: and fish are very aligned with them. So there's a
29:26
Speaker 3: good synergy there. But also, I mean we're not your
29:29
Speaker 3: traditional environmental voice. I mean we're not we're litigating. We're
29:33
Speaker 3: not you know, shrill, you know, sort of left to
29:35
Speaker 3: environmentalists or whatever the stereotype might be. I mean, we're
29:39
Speaker 3: folks that are out there that use the land, that
29:42
Speaker 3: you care about making sure the open spaces stay open spaces,
29:45
Speaker 3: but that the farmers stay on the land. And so
29:49
Speaker 3: I think when you've seen this in different ways, I mean,
29:52
Speaker 3: when our community stood up for public lands, it completely
29:55
Speaker 3: changed the dialogue in that time back in the mid
29:58
Speaker 3: two thousands or in twenty thirteen, fourteen, fifteen sixteen, you know,
30:04
Speaker 3: there was a lot of momentum to basically get rid
30:06
Speaker 3: of public lands transformed to the states to sell them
30:09
Speaker 3: off for profit, and it was really our community is
30:12
Speaker 3: standing up for that and flexing this muscle on something
30:15
Speaker 3: other than the Second Amendment that really turned the tide.
30:18
Speaker 3: And I think that we can do that on farm
30:20
Speaker 3: bill too. But part of our job, and I'm glad
30:21
Speaker 3: you're doing this podcast, is to educate the average hunter
30:24
Speaker 3: of fishermen out there that these programs are really important,
30:28
Speaker 3: not just for fish and wat not just for environmental quality,
30:32
Speaker 3: but also for things like access. I mean, Aaron, we'll
30:34
Speaker 3: talk about this voluntary public access having to have improvement program,
30:38
Speaker 3: but that is right now basically pays for about three
30:41
Speaker 3: million acres of private lands to be opened for public
30:44
Speaker 3: hunting and fishing. So it's an access program as well.
30:48
Speaker 3: But a lot of our community just doesn't understand it
30:50
Speaker 3: and doesn't know the benefits that it brings. That think
30:53
Speaker 3: this is something that is not relevant to them.
30:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so true. Let's talk about some of that stuff,
31:00
Speaker 2: some of the programs that make this so relevant. For
31:03
Speaker 2: folks like the three of us and anybody else who
31:06
Speaker 2: likes to hunt and fish. Aaron, if you will do
31:09
Speaker 2: me this favor, I'm gonna throw at you a couple
31:12
Speaker 2: of the high kind of profile programs, and I'll give
31:16
Speaker 2: kind of my layman's understanding of the program, and then
31:21
Speaker 2: I'll ask you to correct me, to fill in the blanks,
31:24
Speaker 2: to flesh it out and give us the expert point
31:27
Speaker 2: of view. And then from there, I'm curious to hear
31:31
Speaker 2: you know, what are we looking forward with this program
31:33
Speaker 2: in the new farm Bill? So that's kind of my
31:35
Speaker 2: plan to walk through these next couple big programs. And
31:38
Speaker 2: let's start with CRP, because that's I think a headliner
31:42
Speaker 2: whenever we talk about the Farm Bill, and it's something
31:44
Speaker 2: that a lot of hunters do have some kind of
31:46
Speaker 2: experience with. I have to admit that I knew of
31:50
Speaker 2: CRP before I even understood what the acronym stood for.
31:54
Speaker 2: I just thought that's what people call brushy grassy fields.
31:57
Speaker 2: I didn't really realize that was a program behind it.
32:01
Speaker 2: And I guess that means it's successful if we've now
32:03
Speaker 2: started to define a type of landscape by the program
32:07
Speaker 2: that has made it possible. But here's my layman's understanding
32:11
Speaker 2: of CRP. This is a program that pays a per
32:16
Speaker 2: acre on a per acre basis to a farmer to
32:19
Speaker 2: take land out of farm production. So he'll take an
32:21
Speaker 2: acre out of corn or soybeans or something and instead
32:25
Speaker 2: plant some kind of other native I think always native
32:30
Speaker 2: grasses forbes, mixed different things like this, getting some kind
32:33
Speaker 2: of different habitat type on the landscape. That's better for wildlife,
32:38
Speaker 2: that's better for the soil quality, it's better for carbon sequestration,
32:41
Speaker 2: water filtration, all these different things. And there's a number
32:45
Speaker 2: of different programs to help fund that, to monitor that,
32:48
Speaker 2: to make sure that land's being taken care of in
32:51
Speaker 2: a way that's good for all, while also paying that farmer,
32:55
Speaker 2: you know, fair market price for that land. And so
32:58
Speaker 2: that is what leads to like you mentioned, with one
33:01
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty some million acres or however many are
33:03
Speaker 2: actually in CRP, I guess it's not that many. It's
33:05
Speaker 2: something like twenty seven million or something. But a bunch
33:08
Speaker 2: of land in this great habitat for deer, great habitat
33:12
Speaker 2: for birds, pheasants, all that kind of stuff. It's the
33:15
Speaker 2: favorite kind of place I like to hunt near where
33:17
Speaker 2: I can see into these grassy fields, great cover for
33:20
Speaker 2: deer to bed in. There's still some food in there too.
33:23
Speaker 2: During the rut there's always bucks cruising around the down
33:25
Speaker 2: wind edges of those types of spots. I mean, it's
33:27
Speaker 2: primo habitat. So that's what I know at a very
33:31
Speaker 2: high level about CRP. What should a hunter know outside
33:35
Speaker 2: of that? Or said more eloquently than I could air?
33:39
Speaker 4: Well, you actually you nailed it. Actually, I love that description,
33:42
Speaker 4: and I think pointing out the deer habitat benefits to
33:45
Speaker 4: CRP is something we haven't always done a great job of.
33:49
Speaker 4: Pheasant hunters know it well. Duck hunters know it real well,
33:53
Speaker 4: especially if you put that CRP up in the prairie
33:56
Speaker 4: pothole region where we're growing a bunch of ducks. The
34:00
Speaker 4: other thing you mentioned where you know where I live.
34:02
Speaker 4: I live in western Minnesota. If there's grass and there's
34:05
Speaker 4: knock hows on it, people just refer to it as CRP.
34:09
Speaker 4: It doesn't matter what it actually is enrolled in and
34:11
Speaker 4: whether it's enrolled in a program at all. So got
34:14
Speaker 4: some name recognition there, which is great, But basically you
34:18
Speaker 4: hit most of the program. I'll say one thing, you said,
34:23
Speaker 4: pay a fair rental rate. For the most part, we're
34:25
Speaker 4: not paying a fair rental rate right now. We're relying
34:28
Speaker 4: on landowners out of their goodness of their heart to
34:32
Speaker 4: sign up for this program. In most places, the amount
34:37
Speaker 4: we're able to pay is just really not competitive with
34:40
Speaker 4: crop production right now. And that's one of the main
34:43
Speaker 4: reasons where we've got about twenty three million acres enrolled
34:47
Speaker 4: in the CRP right now, we should have about twenty
34:51
Speaker 4: seven million acres, and a lot of that has to
34:55
Speaker 4: do with rental rates. But yeah, you're taking typic real
35:00
Speaker 4: marginal land that is high risk for crop production. And
35:06
Speaker 4: often what a lot of people don't realize is a
35:10
Speaker 4: certain percentage of just about every egg every crop field
35:13
Speaker 4: in the country is costing the farmer money to farm.
35:17
Speaker 4: It might be too wet, it might be too steep,
35:20
Speaker 4: the soil might be too heavily eroded. You might have
35:24
Speaker 4: you know, saline or sodaic issues. Anyway, there's a lot
35:27
Speaker 4: of reasons that can happen, but something like five to
35:30
Speaker 4: fifteen percent, depending on where you are in the country,
35:33
Speaker 4: you're actually losing money on because we're paying for seed,
35:36
Speaker 4: we're paying for fertilizer and we're not getting that crop
35:39
Speaker 4: production out of it anyway. We're taking acres like that
35:43
Speaker 4: typically putting them into conservation cover something that makes good
35:49
Speaker 4: nesting habitat, makes good betting habitat, stops soil erosion, and
35:56
Speaker 4: basically just putting it in a higher use. We find
36:00
Speaker 4: folks up for a ten to fifteen, in some cases
36:03
Speaker 4: thirty year contract to keep that cover in place, and
36:09
Speaker 4: then we asked them to take care of it.
36:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is something that I know a lot
36:15
Speaker 2: of even land managers, you know, who own tracks of
36:20
Speaker 2: land primarily for a wildlife even at least look to
36:23
Speaker 2: try to get involved. And I know there's some folks
36:25
Speaker 2: I know who've been able to get their own land
36:27
Speaker 2: into a CRPRE program or something similar, and you know,
36:31
Speaker 2: within that there's flexibility to plant these different mixes. But
36:35
Speaker 2: then also there might be room for some food plots
36:37
Speaker 2: even within that. So I know this is kind of
36:39
Speaker 2: in the side, but the CRP program and similar programs
36:43
Speaker 2: are an interesting option for recreational landowners to try to
36:47
Speaker 2: get into as a way to somewhat help subsidize habitat
36:51
Speaker 2: improvement projects that benefit you know, downstream and across the
36:55
Speaker 2: kind of the ripple effects of a specific property. But
37:00
Speaker 2: I guess that's neither here nor there. My biggest question
37:03
Speaker 2: for you, Aaron, given that CRP is it has been capped,
37:08
Speaker 2: how many acres are allowed to get into it? And then,
37:10
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, we're not necessarily paying a rate that
37:13
Speaker 2: makes it competitive with what the market is paying folks
37:17
Speaker 2: for their crop. What is it that we're asking for
37:20
Speaker 2: in this round of the Farm bill when it comes
37:22
Speaker 2: to CRP. What are the big changes or requests that
37:25
Speaker 2: we have.
37:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the biggest issue here is we're not
37:30
Speaker 4: providing strong enough incentives to get to that acreage cap
37:35
Speaker 4: in previous years. You know, we work on getting that
37:37
Speaker 4: acreage cap higher right now, we just need to make
37:40
Speaker 4: the program attractive enough to get to that current cap.
37:44
Speaker 4: So a few things that we would like to see.
37:48
Speaker 4: First of all, improving those rental rates would be a
37:50
Speaker 4: huge step towards making this program all that it could be.
37:55
Speaker 4: But a couple of just simple things. There's a payment
37:58
Speaker 4: limitation uh land can't exceed and that limit was set
38:06
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty five, so we'd like to see that raise
38:09
Speaker 4: to account for inflation. We'd like to restore cost here
38:15
Speaker 4: for the management activities we ask people to do on
38:18
Speaker 4: their CRP. So if we say, all right, you're signed
38:21
Speaker 4: up for a ten year contract, at year five, we
38:23
Speaker 4: want you to go in and mowbrush and spray weeds.
38:28
Speaker 4: We think that the landowners should receive some cost here
38:31
Speaker 4: so they're not shouldering that entire cost. And we also
38:38
Speaker 4: think that there's some room to put grading infrastructure in
38:42
Speaker 4: place where it makes sense. So where I live in Minnesota,
38:46
Speaker 4: for example, a lot of these grasslands evolved with some grazing.
38:50
Speaker 4: And if we can put the infrastructure, put the fencing,
38:54
Speaker 4: put the water facilities in place so that we can
38:57
Speaker 4: use livestock as a management tool on that acre, that
39:01
Speaker 4: saves us some taxpayer money for other ways of managing,
39:05
Speaker 4: and it also provides an incentive to the landowner to
39:09
Speaker 4: have that enrollment. And so we've been working and we
39:13
Speaker 4: were happy to see a marker bill that Wit mentioned
39:17
Speaker 4: earlier be introduced, the CRP Improvement app that would do
39:21
Speaker 4: several of these things. So we're hopeful that that can
39:26
Speaker 4: move forward this Congress.
39:27
Speaker 2: Okay, so if we can get all those things done,
39:31
Speaker 2: if we can get those rates back to a more
39:34
Speaker 2: reasonable level, do you feel confident that we will not
39:37
Speaker 2: be in a position like we were a handful of
39:39
Speaker 2: years ago where folks were dropping out of CRPRE and
39:41
Speaker 2: we were seeing you know, more and more land converted
39:44
Speaker 2: back into egg We're seeing wildlife habitat come off the ground.
39:48
Speaker 2: How do you feel about the general future prospects of
39:52
Speaker 2: this program and all those acres that we that we
39:54
Speaker 2: desperately need.
39:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think we definitely can get back to
39:59
Speaker 4: the point where this is used positively. I think that
40:03
Speaker 4: TRP has had a bit of a public relations problem
40:05
Speaker 4: in the past, and hunters and anglers are some of
40:09
Speaker 4: the only folks who have you know, stood up for
40:11
Speaker 4: this program, which in terms of environmental benefits is pretty
40:15
Speaker 4: much the best thing we can do within farm bill
40:19
Speaker 4: conservation programs, maybe next to our easements, but just a
40:24
Speaker 4: ton of positives. And we just need to keep telling
40:27
Speaker 4: that story, and especially hunters and especially taking that next
40:33
Speaker 4: step from moving out from our duck hunters and peasant
40:36
Speaker 4: hunters and having our deer hunters talk about this, having
40:39
Speaker 4: you know, predator hunters talk about this. It's an important program. Yeah.
40:45
Speaker 2: So how about we moved to the next one, the
40:47
Speaker 2: volunteer public Access and Habitat Incentive program. My super high
40:53
Speaker 2: level simpletons description of this term is, this is a
40:57
Speaker 2: program that provides funding for state to create public access
41:01
Speaker 2: programs where we pay a landowner to open up their
41:06
Speaker 2: land to some level of hunting and fishing access. This
41:08
Speaker 2: is how we have like walking programs in states like
41:11
Speaker 2: North Dakota or Kansas or Montana. I think Minnesota maybe
41:17
Speaker 2: has something like that. I know Michigan has something like that.
41:19
Speaker 2: There's a lot of states that have these programs, and
41:21
Speaker 2: I think this is the primary funding mechanism for those.
41:26
Speaker 2: It's one of the biggest challenges for hunters these days
41:28
Speaker 2: is finding places to hunt. While there's not necessarily more
41:34
Speaker 2: hunters than there used to be, there sure seems like
41:36
Speaker 2: there's more active hunters out on these public lands these days.
41:38
Speaker 2: So having increased access to private lands seems like a
41:43
Speaker 2: heck of a good deal and something we would all
41:45
Speaker 2: really benefit from. Is that a correct way to describe
41:49
Speaker 2: this program? And what else would you add to that?
41:52
Speaker 4: Ain? Yeah, So this is basically take the programs that
41:59
Speaker 4: states and now tribes have already created private lands access programs,
42:08
Speaker 4: you know, from Kansas to you mentioned Minnesota's program with
42:11
Speaker 4: walk in areas from North Dakota to the private land
42:13
Speaker 4: open to sportsmen. So taking these programs that have already
42:17
Speaker 4: been designed at the state level, and oftentimes they're implemented
42:21
Speaker 4: at even smaller levels of government. So for example, in Minnesota,
42:25
Speaker 4: it's our soil and Water conservation districts that actually enroll
42:28
Speaker 4: land in the walk in Access program. But you're supplementing
42:34
Speaker 4: the funds that states have available to do those programs.
42:37
Speaker 4: So for example, in Minnesota, I pay my three dollars
42:40
Speaker 4: walk in Access validation fee every time I buy my
42:43
Speaker 4: hunting license, and there's other sources of state and local
42:48
Speaker 4: funding that are used to support that walk in Access
42:51
Speaker 4: program whatever it's called in your state. But this is
42:55
Speaker 4: a federal program that states apply for these funds and
42:59
Speaker 4: they they tell USTA how we're going to use them,
43:02
Speaker 4: and USDA awards those out as a grant. And what's
43:06
Speaker 4: really cool about this is not only are they locally designed,
43:10
Speaker 4: locally led in your state, but they've got a massive
43:15
Speaker 4: return on investment. And I don't know if anybody expected
43:18
Speaker 4: that when these programs came out. With could probably tell
43:21
Speaker 4: me some more of the history here, but we've got
43:24
Speaker 4: a recent report that says, basically, if we spend one
43:27
Speaker 4: dollar through the VPA hip program in a rural community
43:32
Speaker 4: to open up access, we're seeing a return of about
43:35
Speaker 4: over eight almost nine dollars to that investment. And that's
43:40
Speaker 4: because hunters and fishermen and fisher women are coming to town.
43:45
Speaker 4: They're eating at restaurants, they're buying gas, they are staying
43:49
Speaker 4: at hotels, they're seeing the sites while they're in town,
43:52
Speaker 4: they're shopping in local stores, and so it's been a
43:55
Speaker 4: massive boon to rural communities. And this is really in
44:01
Speaker 4: terms of farm bill dollars. I didn't mention this at
44:04
Speaker 4: the front, but conservation programs themselves are a really small
44:09
Speaker 4: chunk of the farm bill. Nutrition programs take up the bulk,
44:14
Speaker 4: crop related programs take up the next and conservation is
44:17
Speaker 4: just kind of a small sliver of that. A VPA
44:21
Speaker 4: hip that this program is a sliver of a sliver
44:24
Speaker 4: of a sliver. This is only a fifty million dollar
44:26
Speaker 4: program right now. Spread that out among fifty states, put
44:31
Speaker 4: it over five years. We could make a lot bigger
44:34
Speaker 4: impact for hunting access and for early economies if we
44:40
Speaker 4: were to support this program better.
44:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, Aaron touched on this and I'm gonna go back
44:46
Speaker 3: a little bit of history. It was really the state
44:48
Speaker 3: of Kansas that pioneered this and at that time Steve Williams,
44:52
Speaker 3: who then went on to become you know, the US
44:54
Speaker 3: Social Widle Life Service director and now runs a wildlife
44:56
Speaker 3: management institute. He was ahead of the Fish and Game
44:58
Speaker 3: Department out there and they created this program became so
45:02
Speaker 3: popular that they had counties in the state giving them
45:05
Speaker 3: grants so they could go out and basically expand it.
45:09
Speaker 3: And that was really the model for the national program
45:11
Speaker 3: which came in two thousand and eight. And it's also
45:15
Speaker 3: worth noting that this is something that a farmer can
45:18
Speaker 3: layer on other programs, so you may have CRP and
45:22
Speaker 3: then you get additional money for this. And part of
45:25
Speaker 3: this is too, is not just you know, paying the
45:27
Speaker 3: farmer to open up their land up hunt and fish.
45:29
Speaker 3: It also waives the state assumes liability if somebody who
45:34
Speaker 3: falls in a ditch and breaks their leg and trusts
45:36
Speaker 3: to sue. So it removes that whole aspect, which is
45:39
Speaker 3: a prohibition from the model landers wanting the public on
45:42
Speaker 3: that land. They're afraid of that. So it works on
45:45
Speaker 3: multiple levels. We have a there's a marker bill out
45:47
Speaker 3: there right now that would expand this program into one
45:50
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty million dollars and you know, which would
45:53
Speaker 3: obviously triple it. But you know, it just can't be
45:55
Speaker 3: understated overstated just how important it is for the hunting
45:58
Speaker 3: and fishing public as well as for the landowner who
46:01
Speaker 3: wants to you know, get as much benefit as he
46:03
Speaker 3: can out of doing the right thing.
46:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. So is that the ask for that one hundred
46:08
Speaker 2: and fifty million in funding for the program or is
46:10
Speaker 2: there something else? Yeah?
46:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean this program works really well. USTA
46:20
Speaker 4: might need a little bit more flexibility as to how
46:23
Speaker 4: they roll it out to states, but for the most part,
46:25
Speaker 4: we can just fund this program better and it'll do
46:27
Speaker 4: a lot of good.
46:30
Speaker 3: The other cool thing about this one is that this
46:32
Speaker 3: is you know, block grants the states, and the states
46:34
Speaker 3: can do their own programs. And when this program got created,
46:38
Speaker 3: you had states like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut that had very
46:43
Speaker 3: little public lan and didn't have any programs like this,
46:46
Speaker 3: you know, create the programs. All of a sudden there
46:48
Speaker 3: was a source of several funding that then they could
46:51
Speaker 3: match that would create this program. So basically build it
46:54
Speaker 3: and they will come.
46:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, this just seems like a no brainer. It's and
46:58
Speaker 2: it's for the for the the hunting and fishing community
47:01
Speaker 2: in particular. I mean, it's just one of those big
47:03
Speaker 2: flashing red lights of a problem for so many people
47:06
Speaker 2: trying to find places to go these days. This is
47:09
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any more impactful opportunity to
47:12
Speaker 2: change that than this. I mean, real meaningful dollars to
47:17
Speaker 2: open up access. So if you hate trying to understand
47:21
Speaker 2: all the acronyms within the farm bill, if CRP and
47:24
Speaker 2: EQUIP and all these different things are too much, just
47:26
Speaker 2: remember habitat access equals the farm bill, And that alone
47:32
Speaker 2: is a very selfish reason to get behind this kind
47:35
Speaker 2: of stuff. But there's plenty more selfish reasons. The next one, Aaron,
47:40
Speaker 2: is EQUIP. I want to talk about EQUIP a little bit.
47:43
Speaker 2: My cliff notes version of what this program does, and
47:46
Speaker 2: the acronym is the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, I believe,
47:49
Speaker 2: But the cliff notes for what that does is basically
47:52
Speaker 2: is a program that provides financial assistance and incentives to
47:58
Speaker 2: landowners to do things on their land in an environmentally
48:03
Speaker 2: friendly way. For example, you know, using different agricultural practices
48:07
Speaker 2: when planting their crops, such as using cover crops or
48:11
Speaker 2: maybe no till drilling, or doing different things along those
48:14
Speaker 2: lines that basically preserve soil quality, preserve water, et cetera,
48:18
Speaker 2: et cetera. All of that is good for fish, it's
48:22
Speaker 2: good for wildlife, it's good for wildlife habitat all sorts
48:26
Speaker 2: of different things like that that are associated or adjacent
48:29
Speaker 2: to these agricultural lands. Is that right, Aaron? What I
48:32
Speaker 2: miss on that one? To kind of keep it high level.
48:36
Speaker 4: Well, I'm thinking we need to get you in some
48:38
Speaker 4: congressional offices because you're doing a great job. Yeah, so
48:43
Speaker 4: equip This is one that we do not have to
48:46
Speaker 4: sell to the egg community and to legislators who are
48:50
Speaker 4: tuned into the egg community. Farmers and ranchers love this programs.
48:55
Speaker 4: It's the simplest program. You know. We can walk in
48:59
Speaker 4: and we come up with a conservation plan for your
49:01
Speaker 4: farm and ranch, and we can start putting practices on
49:04
Speaker 4: the ground and help you pay for them. You mentioned
49:08
Speaker 4: cover crops is one of them. Reduced tillage is another
49:11
Speaker 4: practice that can be used. We can cost share putting
49:14
Speaker 4: sense to keep cows out of the creek. There's just
49:18
Speaker 4: we can we can cost are putting in conservation cover,
49:21
Speaker 4: we can help up on bird habitat, and so it's
49:25
Speaker 4: basically a list of list of things that have great
49:28
Speaker 4: societal benefits, a list of things that help with long
49:33
Speaker 4: term I'm talking generational egg production and some things that
49:39
Speaker 4: they might just take you know, it might take a
49:41
Speaker 4: little cost here, it might take a few years of
49:43
Speaker 4: implementation to get them to that profitability standard for the
49:48
Speaker 4: individual farmer rancher. So currently within EQUIP there's a requirement
49:55
Speaker 4: that ten percent of funding go to wildlife conservation practices,
50:00
Speaker 4: and those practices vary a lot from state to state,
50:04
Speaker 4: you know, in you know, let's let's say in the
50:08
Speaker 4: western Dakotas, you might need a shelter belt somewhere to
50:12
Speaker 4: provide some winter cover in long leaf pine forest. That
50:17
Speaker 4: might be getting prescribed fire back on the ground, so
50:20
Speaker 4: doing some maybe some brush control first and then getting
50:23
Speaker 4: prescribed fire back into that forest to benefit quail. But
50:28
Speaker 4: so states and state technical committees, which are just groups
50:32
Speaker 4: of people within the state who care about agricultural conservation
50:36
Speaker 4: and have expertise in it, are to use of EQUIP
50:41
Speaker 4: funds for wildlife and we want to make sure that
50:44
Speaker 4: that requirement stays in place. There's other requirements that funding
50:48
Speaker 4: go to livestock operations and things like that. We want
50:51
Speaker 4: to keep that wildlife requirement and we want to make
50:54
Speaker 4: sure that that n RCS and the state technical committees
50:59
Speaker 4: are putting a lot of into using that ten percent
51:03
Speaker 4: wisely and putting it towards things that really are great
51:06
Speaker 4: for wildlife, rather than you know, seeing it as sort
51:09
Speaker 4: of an afterthought, Oh this maybe this counts, and we'll
51:12
Speaker 4: just contact under the bucket. I think most states are
51:14
Speaker 4: doing a good job of this. We want to make
51:17
Speaker 4: sure that it continues to be that way.
51:19
Speaker 3: Okay, and Mark, also, it's worth noting that, you know,
51:22
Speaker 3: you've heard a lot about the drought and the prolonged
51:25
Speaker 3: drought in the West and what that's doing the Colorado
51:27
Speaker 3: River and you know a lot of streams, and this
51:30
Speaker 3: is a program you use for that too. For example,
51:32
Speaker 3: when I was a trial limited, we were using equip
51:35
Speaker 3: grants to go in there and work with individual landowners
51:38
Speaker 3: to improve the irrigation efficiency or to go from flood
51:41
Speaker 3: irrigation to you know, you know, center pivot or something
51:44
Speaker 3: like that would save water. And then you put that
51:47
Speaker 3: saved water into a stream for fish. So it has
51:51
Speaker 3: a bunch of different applications that you know, if your
51:54
Speaker 3: creative out there, the conservation front could very well work
51:56
Speaker 3: with equip.
51:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that makes a lot of sense. Last headliner
52:14
Speaker 2: for me at least would be the conservation easement programs
52:18
Speaker 2: that are part of this, and again super high level
52:23
Speaker 2: conservation easements are basically a situation where the development rights
52:28
Speaker 2: for a property are essentially transferred to the government bought
52:34
Speaker 2: for some fair rate, essentially allowing that place to remain
52:41
Speaker 2: undeveloped into perpetuity. You know, this is obviously by the
52:44
Speaker 2: choice of the landowner. They're voluntarily you know, selling that
52:47
Speaker 2: future right and they get a financial benefit for it.
52:50
Speaker 2: And the short termament ensures that these places stay undeveloped
52:53
Speaker 2: and you know, highly conserved habitat into the future. And
52:57
Speaker 2: I don't know all about the details in the Farm
52:58
Speaker 2: Bill how that specific places play it out, but there
53:01
Speaker 2: are programs like that within the Farm Bill, Aaron, can
53:04
Speaker 2: you can you fill in the gaps there?
53:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, So these mostly fall under the Agricultural Conservation Easement
53:12
Speaker 4: program that's split into the egg Land Easement a l
53:17
Speaker 4: E and then the Wetland Reserve easements. So a lot
53:20
Speaker 4: of hunters and anglers paid most attention to the w
53:24
Speaker 4: R the Wetland Reserve easements, and as you mentioned, landowners
53:29
Speaker 4: voluntarily give up some of the some of the right
53:34
Speaker 4: to develop on their land in exchange for a market price.
53:40
Speaker 4: They retain the right to access, they retain the right
53:44
Speaker 4: to restrict access. They can use it for a lot
53:46
Speaker 4: of different things. It's just we're not going to turn
53:49
Speaker 4: it into a housing development. We're not going to drain
53:51
Speaker 4: that wetland. So u as you can imagine, some people
53:58
Speaker 4: will hear that and they'll say, oh, well, why would
54:00
Speaker 4: I want to give that up? Well, you know, for
54:03
Speaker 4: a lot of people, that connections to the land is
54:05
Speaker 4: so important that they don't want to see that, you know,
54:07
Speaker 4: get turned into that strip mall get turned into that
54:11
Speaker 4: housing development or whatever it is. And so they're looking
54:14
Speaker 4: for a way to protect their protect that land into
54:18
Speaker 4: the future. And I think I mentioned this earlier, but
54:21
Speaker 4: from Wetland Reserve easements, ninety four percent of the people
54:24
Speaker 4: who walked in the door and offered up their land
54:28
Speaker 4: for an easement are are turned down because we don't
54:31
Speaker 4: have the resources to do it right now. There's a
54:36
Speaker 4: pretty big hole that I think a lot of deer
54:38
Speaker 4: hunters will be interested in. We don't have a really
54:40
Speaker 4: great way to do forest easements. And these would basically
54:46
Speaker 4: maintain forested land as forests, and you'd still have you know,
54:53
Speaker 4: management taking place, you'd still have conservation appropriate forestry practices,
54:59
Speaker 4: you'd still be taken member off of that land, but
55:02
Speaker 4: it would be maintained in forest. And so we'd really
55:04
Speaker 4: like to see a program created. We tested it out
55:08
Speaker 4: through the Healthy Forest Reserve program. We want to see
55:12
Speaker 4: that expanded and you know, provide an opportunity for forest
55:15
Speaker 4: landowners to participate in an easement program that keeps their
55:19
Speaker 4: working for us in a working forest.
55:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, is there anything else you would add as
55:27
Speaker 2: far as highlights that we haven't touched on within the
55:30
Speaker 2: twenty three farm bill.
55:33
Speaker 3: Well, I was just saying that, you know, if you
55:35
Speaker 3: talk about the Eastmorn programs, which are incredibly important, you know,
55:39
Speaker 3: there are some you know folks that you're you know,
55:41
Speaker 3: like itvs. Govers a very tough state for easements, and
55:44
Speaker 3: you know, some others are a lot of sort of
55:47
Speaker 3: political blowback about locking up land forever. But I mean,
55:51
Speaker 3: this is not exactly a radical concept. I mean, we
55:54
Speaker 3: have about sixty million acres in this country. They're under
55:56
Speaker 3: conservation usement and again they're totally volid terry. And it's like,
56:01
Speaker 3: you know, I want to decide that I want to
56:03
Speaker 3: make sure that the land I've grown up and never
56:05
Speaker 3: gets turned into condos or an Amazon Facilma station or
56:09
Speaker 3: whatever it might be. You know, it seems to me
56:11
Speaker 3: and if somebody's willing to pay me for it, that's
56:14
Speaker 3: my right as a lando er decide how my land's
56:16
Speaker 3: going to be used. And you know, so I just
56:19
Speaker 3: think that, you know, we just need to remember the
56:22
Speaker 3: dating picture here that you know, this is you know,
56:24
Speaker 3: this is supporting private property rights. This is not going
56:27
Speaker 3: against property property rights by any means. But I think
56:30
Speaker 3: bigger picture, it's worth noting too that the Farm bill
56:34
Speaker 3: something has always been bipartisan, and we talked about these,
56:37
Speaker 3: you know, marker bills are out there on the Public
56:40
Speaker 3: Access Provisions or on the CRP provisions, you know, the
56:44
Speaker 3: CRP Improvement Act for example, that's you know, John Foon
56:47
Speaker 3: or Republican from South Dakota and Amy Klobachar you who
56:51
Speaker 3: is you know, demograph from Minnesota, you know, so this
56:54
Speaker 3: is one of those few areas in Congress that still work.
56:57
Speaker 3: And it still works, you know in rural America. But
57:00
Speaker 3: the reason, part of the reason we can always pass
57:02
Speaker 3: a farm bill too is that there's an urban constituency
57:05
Speaker 3: for it as well, because, as Aaron mentioned, you know,
57:08
Speaker 3: the food security programs, the SNAP programs, the farm you know,
57:12
Speaker 3: the food stamps. You know, that's all part of the
57:15
Speaker 3: farm bill too. So you have this good for farmers,
57:18
Speaker 3: it's good for producers, you know, it's good for feeding
57:21
Speaker 3: the world, and it's good for a rural the name
57:23
Speaker 3: for urban America where there's still a lot of people
57:26
Speaker 3: that need this to get by. So you know, that
57:28
Speaker 3: weird dynamic means that we typically can pass a farm
57:31
Speaker 3: bill every five years. And so when you see folks saying, well,
57:36
Speaker 3: we shouldn't be spending as much on you know, the
57:38
Speaker 3: Nutrition Title or food stamps or whatever, they remember, this
57:43
Speaker 3: is a very delicate balance between what rural American needs
57:46
Speaker 3: and what urban American needs, and it works. So you know,
57:50
Speaker 3: those are just my sort of big picture observations.
57:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a good thing to remember. They're
57:56
Speaker 2: about that that balance and you know, I guess leveraging
58:01
Speaker 2: the opportunity we have here with something that is bipartisan,
58:04
Speaker 2: with a lot of different people at the table, we
58:07
Speaker 2: can recognize some pretty significant benefits for fish and wildlife,
58:14
Speaker 2: when otherwise it'd be a lot harder to get this
58:16
Speaker 2: kind of thing pushed through. Probably, So, Aaron, is there
58:19
Speaker 2: anything else super noteworthy when it comes to this round
58:23
Speaker 2: of the farm bill that we haven't touched on that
58:25
Speaker 2: folks really need to know about before we get into
58:28
Speaker 2: action items and what we can do to push this
58:30
Speaker 2: thing through.
58:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm ready to jump to action items, but one
58:36
Speaker 4: that I'll bring up so to get somebody enrolled in
58:40
Speaker 4: these programs to actually get the conservation work on the ground,
58:45
Speaker 4: you've got to have people there to do it. And
58:47
Speaker 4: we ask a ton of the staff in our USDA
58:51
Speaker 4: service centers where you would go to enroll in any
58:54
Speaker 4: of these programs minus VPA hip. You do that through
58:57
Speaker 4: your state or local government agency. But we absolutely need
59:01
Speaker 4: to make sure that when a farmer, rancher, landowner walks
59:05
Speaker 4: in the door and sits down next to somebody's desk,
59:08
Speaker 4: First of all, we need to make sure that there's
59:10
Speaker 4: somebody who's hired to sit at that desk so that
59:13
Speaker 4: they can actually answer questions. But we need to make
59:16
Speaker 4: sure there's somebody who they can trust, who can answer
59:19
Speaker 4: their questions, who can go out to their farmer ranch
59:22
Speaker 4: and walk them through all the different options and areas
59:25
Speaker 4: where we can make some improvements and then shepherd them
59:28
Speaker 4: through this. You know, there's a lot of applications, there's
59:31
Speaker 4: a lot of detail. There's a lot of things that
59:34
Speaker 4: the average person isn't going to be able to walk through.
59:38
Speaker 4: We've got to make sure we're well staffed, and sometimes
59:41
Speaker 4: we forget about it. We talked about the programs themselves
59:43
Speaker 4: and how we can make them better. We've got to
59:46
Speaker 4: have the people in place to do it too, and
59:48
Speaker 4: whether they're a USDA employee, that's very important for a
59:54
Speaker 4: NGO non governmental organization partner who is helping to you know,
1:00:00
Speaker 4: talk land owners through this process and get them enrolled.
1:00:03
Speaker 4: Either way, we need to make sure that there's you know,
1:00:05
Speaker 4: qualifying people there who can take the call and work
1:00:09
Speaker 4: someone through this process.
1:00:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, can argue with that. We've got these diverse set
1:00:21
Speaker 2: of asks. I guess right, we're asking for a whole
1:00:25
Speaker 2: bunch of different things related to CRP, related to access,
1:00:27
Speaker 2: related to environmental quality, related to easement's related to staffing.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: There's a lot of different things here and on the
1:00:35
Speaker 2: priority document. I know you guys have developed those a
1:00:38
Speaker 2: whole list of other things as well. There's a lot
1:00:40
Speaker 2: of things that we're hoping that the hunting and fishing
1:00:43
Speaker 2: community can see come to fruition in this addition to
1:00:47
Speaker 2: the farm bill, Aaron, But I'm doubtful that I or
1:00:52
Speaker 2: anyone listening could remember to list all twenty four different
1:00:57
Speaker 2: priorities in a phone call to someone in angs or
1:01:00
Speaker 2: in an email or something like that. So I guess
1:01:03
Speaker 2: what I'm curious about is for the average person listening
1:01:06
Speaker 2: to this, what should we actually do, what should we
1:01:11
Speaker 2: actually be asking for? And when's the most important time
1:01:14
Speaker 2: to do it?
1:01:17
Speaker 4: Sure, I'll give you a couple options and then pass
1:01:20
Speaker 4: it over to with First off, visit our website at
1:01:25
Speaker 4: TRST dot org. Click on our Fine Deal page and
1:01:29
Speaker 4: we'll take you to an explanation of a lot of
1:01:31
Speaker 4: programs in layman's terms, and we'll guide you towards an
1:01:35
Speaker 4: action alert that will put you in touch with your
1:01:39
Speaker 4: legislators and reach out to them directly. The other thing
1:01:44
Speaker 4: I'll say is if you get a legislator you know
1:01:47
Speaker 4: in person, or you get a lawmaker on the phone,
1:01:51
Speaker 4: or you get one of their staff on the phone,
1:01:53
Speaker 4: you don't have to know all the details of these programs.
1:01:56
Speaker 4: What you need to do is tell them that you
1:01:58
Speaker 4: love to hunt and fish, you want to have great
1:02:01
Speaker 4: places to be able to do that, and farm build
1:02:03
Speaker 4: conservation programs are one of the ways we can get there,
1:02:07
Speaker 4: and that you need them to get it done. So
1:02:09
Speaker 4: having that personal connection is a lot more important than
1:02:12
Speaker 4: having all the details straightened out.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: What about timing? When when do we start getting on
1:02:18
Speaker 2: the horn about this stuff?
1:02:20
Speaker 4: We need to get on the horn right now. So
1:02:23
Speaker 4: farm bills are being written as we speak, both in
1:02:28
Speaker 4: Senate and House egg committees. Staffers are taking input right now,
1:02:33
Speaker 4: they're putting it into legislative texts, and they'll be rolling
1:02:37
Speaker 4: stuff out in the next few months. So early and
1:02:41
Speaker 4: often is the answer to the when question.
1:02:44
Speaker 2: Okay, what would you add on all that?
1:02:48
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think eron covered really well. If you go
1:02:51
Speaker 3: to tiersp dot org and you sign up, not only
1:02:54
Speaker 3: will it send something to your legislator, but then you'll
1:02:56
Speaker 3: also receive regular updates from us about what's going on,
1:03:00
Speaker 3: and then if there is a something really critical that
1:03:04
Speaker 3: we need to weigh in on about an individual program
1:03:07
Speaker 3: or individual member of Congress, we can reach back out
1:03:10
Speaker 3: to you. Again, I think it is important what Aaron
1:03:13
Speaker 3: said too, is you don't need to be an expert
1:03:16
Speaker 3: and don't be intimidated by the process. Just talk about
1:03:20
Speaker 3: the need for hunting, fishing, good habitat on private lands
1:03:25
Speaker 3: and the importance of the farm bill and making that happen.
1:03:28
Speaker 3: And more they hear that, then you know, that's just
1:03:31
Speaker 3: bucks them up, and you know that's can be way
1:03:34
Speaker 3: more impactful than a form letter coming out of a website.
1:03:37
Speaker 3: When you sign up, the formula will go and that's great.
1:03:40
Speaker 3: But you know, it's a sense that you can attend
1:03:42
Speaker 3: a field hearing in your neighborhood if you can, you know,
1:03:46
Speaker 3: write your legislators, you can call in, and can call
1:03:49
Speaker 3: in the evening. And if we leave a message on
1:03:50
Speaker 3: the office voicemail, it'll get listened to and it we'll
1:03:54
Speaker 3: get responded to. So that individual, you know, sort of
1:03:58
Speaker 3: contact that you would do beyond just something as simple
1:04:01
Speaker 3: as you know, checking a box on an online form.
1:04:05
Speaker 3: And that's really important.
1:04:06
Speaker 2: As well.
1:04:07
Speaker 3: And I think that you know, tell your neighbors, you know,
1:04:09
Speaker 3: talk about it. It's your local rotary club or grange meeting,
1:04:13
Speaker 3: you know, talk about it, your local chapter meeting it
1:04:16
Speaker 3: says it's Forever Ducks, some limit or tea or whatever
1:04:18
Speaker 3: the group is. And you know, just get organized and
1:04:22
Speaker 3: just make your voice. Your voice gets heard. Because the
1:04:25
Speaker 3: squeakiest wheel in Washington often gets the grease, and this
1:04:29
Speaker 3: is a squeaky wheel that deserves grease.
1:04:32
Speaker 2: It seems like it can't be said enough. This is
1:04:34
Speaker 2: the largest private land conservation bill instead of funding available
1:04:40
Speaker 2: every single year, right, I mean, this is this is
1:04:42
Speaker 2: it is the.
1:04:44
Speaker 3: Largest conservation bill period.
1:04:48
Speaker 4: Wow.
1:04:49
Speaker 3: So it is bigger than the funding for all the
1:04:51
Speaker 3: land management agencies, you know. So I think that you know,
1:04:54
Speaker 3: it's it is a huge deal. And you know, again
1:04:58
Speaker 3: it's supporting you know, the farmers and ranchers of America
1:05:02
Speaker 3: that feed us all. And it's also great for hunting
1:05:05
Speaker 3: and fishing, great for water quality, great for clientate, you
1:05:07
Speaker 3: name it.
1:05:09
Speaker 2: Awesome all right, gentlemen, Well, I will be getting on
1:05:12
Speaker 2: the horn here myself. I hope that a lot of
1:05:14
Speaker 2: our listeners will too, and I will be sending folks
1:05:17
Speaker 2: to TRCP dot org and I actually just checked. If
1:05:20
Speaker 2: you go to trcp dot org slash farm bill, it
1:05:23
Speaker 2: takes you directly to your farm bill landing page, which
1:05:26
Speaker 2: has lots of great resources there for folks too. So
1:05:29
Speaker 2: great work with all the resources you guys provide. And
1:05:32
Speaker 2: thank you so much for walking us through all this
1:05:35
Speaker 2: here today.
1:05:37
Speaker 3: Hey, Mark, thanks for the invitation and thanks for just
1:05:40
Speaker 3: keeping this issue front and center and your listeners.
1:05:44
Speaker 4: I really appreciate it. Mark. This is a fantastic that
1:05:47
Speaker 4: you're able to spotlight.
1:05:48
Speaker 2: This for us, my pleasure. Guys, have a great rest
1:05:51
Speaker 2: of to day, you too, all right, and that is
1:05:56
Speaker 2: a wrap thanks to Wit and Erin again for all
1:05:59
Speaker 2: of that that they share. I'm ready to start making
1:06:02
Speaker 2: some phone calls, sending some emails, doing all that good stuff.
1:06:07
Speaker 2: We've got a great opportunity ahead of us this year.
1:06:09
Speaker 2: The twenty twenty three farm bill can be the best ever.
1:06:12
Speaker 2: And if all of us listening right now, if all
1:06:15
Speaker 2: of us we got tens of thousands of people listening
1:06:18
Speaker 2: to this, if we all take some action and talk
1:06:21
Speaker 2: to our senators, talk to our representatives, this thing can
1:06:25
Speaker 2: get across the finish line. And do some incredible things deer,
1:06:29
Speaker 2: for deer hunting, for all sorts of animals, for our
1:06:32
Speaker 2: hunting access opportunities, and so much more so, I hope
1:06:36
Speaker 2: you will join me in participating in this opportunity to
1:06:42
Speaker 2: be active participants in American government. I guess you might
1:06:48
Speaker 2: be able to say so. With that said, thanks for
1:06:52
Speaker 2: tuning in. I appreciate you. I'm really proud of this
1:06:55
Speaker 2: community we have and having you a part of it
1:06:57
Speaker 2: means a lot to me. So until next time, stay
1:07:02
Speaker 2: wired to hunt.
1:07:05
Speaker 4: Mm hmm