National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture

Conservation Reserve Program

Program Description

The Conservation Reserve Program (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.

Program Administration

The CRP is administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA) through local FSA offices.

Program Status

This is not a new program. It was created in the Food Security Act of 1985, as amended.

How the Program is Funded

CRP receives mandatory funding of approximately $100-$200 million per year.

Using the Program

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 seven to 90 days from the date of submission of the application. Eligible acreage may be enrolled at any time under the continuous sign up program and is not subject to competitive bidding. For more information about continuous sign-up go to (http://www.fsa.usda.gov/pas/publications/facts/html/crpcont00.htm)

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. Financial assistance ranges from $50 to $50,000 with $5,000 being the average nationally.

Eligibility Criteria

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 may apply. A producer must have owned or operated the land for at least 12 months prior to close of the signup period, unless:

The new owner acquired the land as a result of death of the previous owner;
The only ownership change occurred due to foreclosure where the owner exercised a timely right or redemption in accordance with state law; or
The circumstances of the acquisition present adequate assurance to CCC that the new owner did not acquire the land for the purpose of placing it in CRP.

To be eligible for placement in the CRP land must be:

Cropland that is planted or considered planted to an agricultural commodity 2 of the 5 most recent crop years (including field margins) and which is physically and legally capable of being planted in a normal manner to an agricultural commodity;

Marginal pastureland that is either:

Certain acreage enrolled in the Water Bank Program; or
Suitable for use as a riparian buffer to be planted to trees.

In addition to the eligible land requirements, cropland must meet one of the following:

Have a weighted average Erosion Index (EI) of 8 or higher or be considered highly erodible land according to the conservation compliance provisions;
Be considered a cropped wetland;
Be devoted to any of a number of highly beneficial environmental practices, such as filter strips, riparian buffers, grass waterways, shelterbelts, wellhead protection areas, and other similar practices;
Be subject to scour erosion;
Be located in a national or state CRP conservation priority area;
Be cropland associated with or surrounding noncropped wetlands.

Who to Contact

USDA
Beverly Preston, Farm Service Agency
202-720-9563, Beverly.Preston@usda.gov

For technical assistance, contact:
Malcolm Henning, National Program Manager, Natural Resources Conservation
202-720-1872, Malcolm.Henning@usda.gov

http://attra.ncat.org/guide/n_z/wrp.html

Adapted from "Building Better Rural Places" and NRCS's Conservation Reserve Program Fact Sheet.