Last Updated June 16, 2007
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
Offering contracts for highly erodible and other environmentally sensitive cropland for 10 to 15 years if landowners establish and maintain perennial vegetation and agree to leave the land idle for the length of the contract
The CRP offers landowners, operators, and tenants the opportunity to voluntarily convert land with high erosion rates and other environmentally sensitive land to permanent vegetative cover. Permanent cover options include grasses and legumes, tree plantings, and wildlife habitat.
The program goals are to reduce soil erosion, enhance fish and wildlife habitat, improve water quality, protect the soils on the nation's cropland base, demonstrate good land stewardship, and improve rural aesthetics. The program aims to protect the nation's long-term ability to produce food and fiber by effectively managing agricultural resources, reducing soil erosion, reducing sedimentation, improving water quality, creating a better habitat for fish and wildlife, providing some needed income support for farmers, and curbing production of some surplus commodities.
Financial and technical assistance is available to participants to help establish a permanent vegetative cover.
Project Examples
Projects funded include:
- Marginal cropland in Mississippi, planted to soybeans, is at continual risk of erosion because of sandy, silty soils and a slope too great for tillage. One landowner chose to convert a portion of his land to pine trees as permanent cover through CRP. The cost of planting was about $60/acre, including the seedlings and paying a contractor for machine planting. CRP paid the landowner $30/acre, or 50 percent of the cost of conversion, plus $36/acre annual rental payment. The land is protected from severe erosion with tree cover, and additional income could come from thinning the trees in 13 to 16 years.
- In Wisconsin, an elderly dairy farming couple with no son or daughter to take over the farm wanted to sell their dairy operation, but could not find a young farmer interested in buying it. Their land has shallow soils, has been contour-stripped since the 1950s, and is highly erodible. The couple was able to sell their cows and machinery and put 200 acres into CRP, (leaving the remaining 100 acres in pasture and woodlot). For 10 years they will receive $80/acre for their land, which is seeded to grass to protect it from erosion.
- In New Mexico, certain highly erodible land had a history of being cultivated when wheat prices were high and abandoned when prices dropped, leaving the topsoil exposed to wind erosion. Some of these lands were entered into CRP, enabling farmers to plant a cover grass to protect and conserve the topsoil for future cultivation after the 10 years in CRP, and they still receive income for 10 years from the land.
Application and Financial Information
To initiate the application procedure, a
landowner must submit a rental rate per acre
bid to the local Farm Service Agency (FSA) office
that serves the area in which the farm or ranch
is located during the announced sign up period.
Those whose bids are accepted will be notified
from 7 to 90 days from the date of submission of
the application.
County FSA offices will provide producers the maximum acceptable rental rate for the acreage offered. All offers will be screened at both the local and national levels to determine the suitability of the acreage and acceptability of the rental rate bid. In addition, offers will be evaluated in terms of cost for the environmental benefits obtained.
Acres accepted will be limited to pre-announced levels for each sign up period. Annual rental payments to producers range from $50 to $50,000, with $5,000 being the average nationally.
Eligibility, Uses, and Restrictions
This program serves any individual; partnership;
association; Indian tribal ventures corporation;
estate; trust; other business enterprise or
legal entity; and, whenever applicable, a state, a
political subdivision of a state, or any agency
thereof owning or operating private croplands,
and state or local government croplands.
Eligible owners or operators may place highly erodible or environmentally sensitive land into a 10- to 15-year contract. In return for annual payments, the participant agrees to implement a conservation plan approved by the local conservation district for converting highly erodible cropland or environmentally sensitive land to a less intensive use (that is, cropland must be planted with a vegetative cover such as perennial grasses, legumes, forbs, shrubs, or trees). Managed haying and/or grazing may be permitted on most CRP land, but there is a commensurate payment reduction.
The cropland must be owned or operated for at least 12 months before the close of the annual sign-up period, unless the land was acquired by will or succession or the FSA determines that ownership was not acquired for the purpose of placing the land in the CRP Program. Marginal pastureland enrolled in riparian buffers or other practices may also be eligible.
Contact
For more information, contact your local Farm
Service Agency Office. (Consult the local phone
directory under U.S. Government, U.S.
Department of Agriculture.)
Bob Stephenson, Director
National Program Office
Conservation and Environmental Programs
Division
USDA/FSA/CEPD/STOP 0513
Washington, DC 20250-0513
Phone: (202) 720-6221; Fax: (202) 720-4619
Internet
www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=home&subject=copr&topic=crp
