November/December 1985 RAIN Page 5 SHOWERS percent of graduates are female), re-orienting research toward sustained-yield food crops and away from cash crops, making information flow both ways between research stations and women in the fields (to learn as well as teach), and providing women with technical training as their field tasks become mechanized, since mechanization usually means men take over the work. (Source: CERES, FAO Review on Agriculture and Development, May/June 1985.) Farmland Protection Policy Act Reconsidered For 50 years, the Soil Conservation Service (SCS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has worked to protect the deptij of U.S. soils. In the 1970s, a specially-selected staff spent two years developing an excellent report on the loss of breadth of U.S. soil due to conversion to non-farm, primarily urban, uses. In 1981, the conservation thrust of the report was publicly supported by Secretary of Agriculture John Block, and later that year. President Reagan signed into law the Farmland Protection Policy Act (FPPA), designed to halt farmland conversion as a result of federal agency actions. So far, so good. But what happened to FPPA after becoming law provides some insight into the more quietly carried out revisionism operating alongside the well-publicized actions of the administration. In the 18 months following FPPA's becoming law, USDA developed criteria to implement the act. The criteria received wide acclaim, except from those who wanted to retain total freedom to use their land for maximum personal gain. Early in 1984, FPPA's critics were reassured, via a speech by a USDA Assistant Secretary to the National Cattlemen's Association, that there was nothing to fear from FPPA. When the law was presented in its final operative form a few months later, the number of FPPA criteria had been reduced from 16 to 12, and more serious thre£its to the effectiveness of the law were to follow in the way the administration set up the regulations for enforcement. First, any land zoned or recently planned for non-agricul- tural use was declared "committed for urban use," and exempt from consideration under the statute. Also, it was determined that for land to get the protection of FPPA, local SCS offices had to receive a request to do an evaluation, which then had to be completed within 45 days or the land in question became free from FPPA control. Compliance with evaluation requests within that time frame would have been difficult in any case, but only 20 percent of SCS staff had been trained to do the evaluations by the end of 1984, and the availability of training materials in Washington, D.C., had not been widely advertised. Moreover, the Land Use Division of SCS, which provided the staff that wrote FPPA and prepared the training techniques and materials, is being disbanded, which will make it more difficult for staff to interpret the laws intent. While Secretary Block and President Reagan quietly stood by, the FPPA has been essentially neutralized from within the Department of Agriculture, and prime farmland remains relatively easy to convert into business parks, suburbs, malls, and cash. (Source: American Land Use Forum, Spring 1985.) MOVING? If you're moving, please let us know. With a month's notice we can make sure you get each issue of RAIN. But if you don't let us know, you may miss out. The U.S. Postal Service doesn't usually forward RAIN's class of mail. Attach your address label here (or copy it carefully): New address: NAME_________ _____________________________________ ADDRESS ____ ______________________________ ^ CITY------------------------------------STATE ■ZIP NAME ______________________________________ ADDRESS__________________ ^_________________________ CITY-----------------------^------------- STATE______ ______ ZIP EFFECTIVE DATE-------------------------------------------- Mail to: RAIN, 3116 North Williams, Portland, OR 97227
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