USDA's Conservation Program: $1.77B for Conservation and Climate-Smart Farming.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued more than $1.77 billion this year to agricultural producers and landowners through its Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a critical piece of the Department’s efforts to support climate-smart agriculture and forestry on working lands. Right now, CRP’s more than 667,000 participants received payments from USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) for their voluntary conservation efforts on more than 23 million acres of private land. Since 2021, CRP has grown by 21 percent in terms of acres enrolled, testament to the Biden-Harris administration’s program improvement efforts.

“Through the addition of tools to sequester carbon, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and better quantify these efforts, while also bringing into the fold more Tribes and underserved producers, we’ve made the Conservation Reserve Program better for our nation’s natural resources and for our agricultural producers and landowners,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “These producers and landowners voluntarily place their land under contract and, in the spirit of stewardship, agree to establish and maintain prescribed conservation practices for the life of contract. We’re grateful to all CRP participants who are making a tremendous difference by proactively addressing climate change and conserving natural resources now and for future generations.”

Top five states for CRP participant payments:

Iowa, $402,508,900

Illinois, $172,723,800

Minnesota, $150,773,400

South Dakota, $129,545,200

Missouri, $99,849,600

Improvements to CRP

Since 2021, FSA has made improvements to the program:

Introducing a new climate-smart practice incentive for CRP general and continuous signups designed to reward participants who implement conservation practices that increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Enabling additional soil rental rate adjustments or rate flexibilities, including a possible increase in rates where appropriate.

Increasing payments for practice incentives from 20 percent to 50 percent. This incentive, in addition to cost share payments, for continuous CRP practices is based on establishment cost.

Increasing payments for water quality practices rates from 10 percent to 20 percent for certain water quality benefiting practices available through the CRP continuous signup, such as grassed waterways, riparian buffers and filter strips.

Establishing a Grassland CRP minimum rental rate benefitting more than 1,000 counties with rates currently below the $13 minimum.

Additionally, FSA made significant improvements to the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) that reduce barriers by making the program more accessible to a broader cross-section of agricultural producers and new conservation partners. These program improvements include the flexibility for partners to provide matching funds in the form of cash, in-kind contributions, or technical assistance and the ability for FSA to invest in additional, full-time staff devoted to working directly with our CREP partners and program specialists in FSA’s state offices.

Source: usda.gov

Photo Credit: USDA