Sue Kirchoff of USA Today and Jeff Martin of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader teamed up on a terrific story in this morning's paper. Datelined De Smet, South Dakota, the article's headline says it all: "America's grasslands vanishing amid agricultural boom.".

In case anyone wonders why conservationists are pressing hard for a minimum $5 billion increase over baseline funding for conservation programs in the farm bill, this story provides a big part of the argument.

The USA's open plains and prairies are threatened by soaring grain prices that have increased their value as cropland. Grain prices have been driven up by a seemingly insatiable worldwide appetite for food and by federal energy policies promoting corn-based ethanol that are working at cross purposes with government programs designed to conserve open spaces.

As a result, landowners in South Dakota and across the USA's Farm Belt are converting to cropland marginally productive acres that for decades — in some cases, centuries — have remained uncultivated because farming them wouldn't have been profitable or because of their environmental value. . .

. . .Long-term benefits are being overtaken by short-term incentives, however. Farmers chasing near-record prices are coaxing higher yields from current acres and putting more land into crops.

Kevin Baloun, a farmer-rancher near Highmore, S.D., is among them. He's plowed up several pieces of virgin prairie in recent years to plant crops. Land values in his area have tripled in the past five years, which makes it harder for farmers to expand production by buying more cropland.

"The bottom line is what makes you go that direction," Baloun says of his conversion of prairie to cropland. "Wheat was $4 or $5 a bushel a couple of years ago, and now it's up to $10 or $12 a bushel."

Conservationists warn that the current commodity and ethanol frenzy could undo years of hard work and undercut the investment of taxpayer money that has bankrolled federal land- and water-protection programs.

"A generation of conservation accomplishments could be rolled back" if commodity prices remain near historic highs, warns Ken Cook, head of the non-profit Environmental Working Group.

Also worth noting, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Conner's continued resistance to allowing Conservation Reserve Program contract holders out of their contracts without penalty.

Food processors, livestock producers and other businesses want even more CRP land released to blunt the huge price increases for corn, wheat, soybeans and other farm commodities. They are pushing the government to waive hefty penalties on farmers who opt out of CRP contracts early.

The American Bakers Association this month even held a march on Washington. Industry has "been warning government officials about the pending crisis for the past year. Any further delay could have extremely serious consequences," said Robb MacKie, American Bakers president.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said no to the early release of acreage from the CRP, but it has also decided not to allow new land into the CRP except for the most highly sensitive acres.

U.S. Agriculture Deputy Secretary Chuck Conner says that the situation remains under review but that his agency will proceed cautiously. "We don't see it (CRP) as something where you dial it up or dial it down," says Conner. "It's too important an environmental and conservation program."

Both policy and personal history are at work here. Conservationists, myself included, testified before Sen. Richard Lugar in 1985 to make the case for including the CRP and other historic conservation provisions in the Senate version of that year's farm bill. Lugar, who chaired the relevant conservation subcommittee, turned to his staff director after the hearing and said "make it happen."

And that's exactly what his staff director, Chuck Conner, did. For as long as he worked for Lugar, Chuck was among a handful of key congressional staffers who stood up against bi-partisan efforts to gut the conservation title--notably in the 1990 and 1996 farm bills.