A federal judge has rejected an Iowa farmer’s challenge to a Department of Agriculture conservation policy that environmental advocates view as key to avoiding wetlands losses in agricultural states.
The ruling upholds the “Swampbuster” program, which requires farmers to maintain wetlands on their property in order to receive certain USDA benefits. Created via a provision of the 1985 farm bill, the program has saved approximately 78 million acres of wetlands from conversion to farmland, advocates estimate.
CTM Holdings argued that the program places an unconstitutional condition on USDA benefits and constrains the use of private farmland. The company also disputed that its land contains wetlands, describing the soil as “not permanently or seasonally saturated or inundated by water at any time of the year.”
Judge C.J. Williams of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa dismissed the company’s claims regarding the USDA program, concluding that it is fair to place conditions against wetlands destruction on farmer benefits.
