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With the Senates passage of the long awaited 2014 Farm bill, and President Obama's promise to sign, its worth a look at the details as both the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) and Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Both programs are funded through the Farm Bill, with it's almost $1 Trillion budget, and have a direct impact on wetland conservation.

Overall, there has been a $6 billion decrease in funding from the 2008 Farm Bill.  Acreage under management for the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was capped at 24 million acres, down from a cap of 32 million acres, but with enrollment currently only at 17 million acres, its a paper loss. The modified provisions also allows up to 2 million acres to be used for grazing under certain circumstances.

Two other existing conservation programs, the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP) and Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) are to be combined and share $1 billion in funding under the new Agricultural Lands Easement (ALE) program.

Due to conservation organizations efforts, a major victory is the reinstatement of the "Swampbuster" provision, tying or  "re-coupling" conservation compliance, which had been missing in the Farm Bill since 1996, directly to agricultural subsidies. Farmers may still convert, or drain wetlands, but they will forgo subsidized federal crop insurance if they do. Ducks Unlimited estimates there was as many as 3.3 million acres of wetlands at risk due to the lack of penalties tht the Swampbuster provisionsprovided in the interim years between 1996 and today.