Pre-colonial times offered a land of diverse wetlands across the land, as well as some 400 million acres of prairies in the Great Plains. Today only half of the original wetlands are left, and in the Eastern part of the Plains, 99.99 percent of the historic prairies are gone. The intensification of agriculture after World War II created several environmental problems including loss of habitat for wildlife. With the advent of the conservation title of the 1985 farm act, wetlands and native prairies were no longer to be drained or plowed up without jeopardizing a farmer's subsidies. The 1985 farm act also provided for a 40 million acre Conservation Reserve Program. Thus began a healing of the land that restored some 34 million acres of grasslands, two million acres of trees and a half million acres of wetlands. Conversion to cropland of marginal lands also dramatically declined. The result has been a bonanza for grassland bird species and waterfowl across the nation over the past decade.

The agricultural policy program at Audubon focuses on conservation of prairies and wetlands and protection of marginal lands from being brought into intensive row crop production. Funding of conservation programs, their enforcement, and evaluation is an ongoing project. The relationship of agriculture to other laws, such as the Clean Water Act, is also of concern.