Be glad your country does not have the ever long reaching arm of the EPA which is an additional type of government involvement in agriculture.  The upside of this involvement is they keep us on the land producing "cheap food" and with that subsidy we farmers capitalize that "extra money" into land prices which then increases in value giving local taxing entities more money per levy rate.....and on and on.

The downside is what you are surprised about (among other things) and long term the US will be less competitive in the world market because we are not as lean and mean and all these rules keep bringing land out of production or at least the rules certainly do not maximize land potential....all the while other countries keep improving their game to make up for what the US pays us not to do.  Payments come in two ways....direct payments and the other is making sure you don't get fined if you have areas of your land that are designated wet lands.  There might be some provisions for "moving" wet land to another area at of course much higher costs yet.

Keep land shaping while you still can!

Arnie