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SECTION VII NATURAL RESOURCES AND THE FAMILY FARM Public and privately-owned land, mineral and other resources should be conserved and administered in the interest of all people. 1. SOIL AND WATER STEWARDSHIP A. Land and water stewardship is part of the social contract between food producers and the rest of the society. Producers have a responsibility to maintain and improve the productivity of the land. In return, they should be rewarded for their stewardship by farm programs which provide a prosperous livelihood for the farm family.
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B. Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) should work to achieve the mutually beneficial objectives of proper stewardship and the maintenance of family farm agriculture.
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(a) Oil extraction and production taxes should first be used to address infrastructure,
C. Conservation Planning (1) A conservation plan should be jointly developed by the farm operator and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for each farm unit. This plan should designate which highly- erodible soils should not be tilled and which can be tilled with approved conservation practices. The plan should clearly map and document both existing and drained wetlands, as well as any drains and channels. The plan should consider all soil conditions in the conservation of the wetlands, as well as the maintenance of existing drains and channels. (2) Such a conservation planning system should replace the existing sodbuster and swampbuster provisions and should be supervised and approved by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) committee process, with the technical assistance of the NRCS. (3) Producers should be allowed to remedy inadvertent or unavoidable failures to carry out conservation plan practices. Otherwise, penalties should be based on the degree of the violation. Loss of full federal farm program benefits should be imposed only in cases of purposeful destruction of conservation practices. D. Conservation Funding (1) We believe family farmers and ranchers are stewards of the land – that is, we are aware of our impact now and on future generations. We strive for a balance of natural resources and production of food and fuel. That balance is a difficult one to strike, and that’s why we are concerned how the word “conservation” is defined and who defines it. (2) We believe that any funding of conservation projects, including projects funded by grants from the North Dakota Outdoor Heritage Fund, must meet the following parameters:
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