Republican lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to allow farmers to plant crops on millions of fallow acres through a federal conservation program, saying larger US harvests would help stabilize food prices and prevent famine amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
At issue are more than four million acres of farmland that are currently idle under the US Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).
The program, which is designed to improve soil quality and provide wildlife habitat, pays farmers to keep some of their land fallow under 10- or 15-year contracts.
