Ag News
Judge OK's emergency grazing program with limits
Published Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 07:09 PM
SEATTLE (AP) _ A federal judge in Seattle has cleared the way for an emergency program opening private conservation land to hay production and cattle grazing. Even though the USDA didn't conduct an appropriate environmental review before opening 24 million acres of private conservation land around the country to haying and grazing, it would be unfair to farmers and ranchers to stop the program because many were counting on using that land. That's the ruling by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour. The land at issue is enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program. It's a $2 billion-a-year program which pays farmers not to plant crops in order to return fields to native vegetation.

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