Driftwood outdoors: Farm bill could affect waterfowl management

Dale Hall is the CEO of Ducks Unlimited. It’s a job you can’t pretend to love. To be at the helm of the world’s leader in wetlands conservation, you have to believe with heart and soul that your mission is vitally important.

Hall eats, breathes and sleeps waterfowl. His passion has led to a career devoted to political protection of conservation areas that support natural regeneration of waterfowl species. It’s hard to believe that the future of ducks and geese is determined by a roomful of politicians, but it’s true.

Thankfully, organizations such as Ducks Unlimited are in existence to ensure our feathered friends get a fair shake.

“Waterfowl are a migratory resource, and Ducks Unlimited and its many partners work across the continent to conserve habitat that fulfills the needs of waterfowl throughout their life cycle. One of our conservation priorities is the Prairie Pothole Region of the Northern Plains, which is the most productive — and most threatened — breeding habitat for North American ducks,” Hall said. “The PPR has already lost half of its wetlands, and more than 3.2 million acres of grassland were converted to cropland in the Northern Plains between 1982 and 2003.”

As defined by Wikipedia, the Farm Bill is the primary agricultural and food policy tool of the federal government. The comprehensive omnibus bill is passed every five years or so by Congress and deals with both agriculture and all other affairs under the purview of the Department of Agriculture. It usually amends some and suspends provisions of permanent law, reauthorizes, amends or repeals provisions of preceding temporary agricultural acts, and puts forth new policy provisions for a limited time into the future.

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