Food and Ag News
Conservation Stewardship Program
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) began continuous sign-up for
the new Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) on August 10, with the
first signup period cutoff scheduled for September 30.
CSP is a voluntary program that encourages agricultural and forestry
producers to maintain existing conservation activities and adopt additional
ones on their operations.
The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (2008 Farm Bill) authorized
CSP. Congress renamed and revamped the former Conservation Security Program
completely to improve its availability and appeal to agricultural and
forestry producers. USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
administers CSP. Eligible lands include cropland, grassland, prairie,
improved pastureland, rangeland, non-industrial private forestland – a
new land use for the program – and agricultural land under the
jurisdiction of an Indian tribe.
Eligible applicants may include individual landowners, legal entities,
and Indian tribes. The program will be offered to producers in all 50
states, the District of Columbia, and the Pacific and Caribbean areas
through continuous sign-ups. Agricultural and forestry producers must
submit applications by Sept. 30 to be considered for funding in the first
ranking period. Congress capped the annual acreage enrollment at 12,769,000
acres for each fiscal year nationwide.
To apply for the newly revamped CSP, potential participants will be
encouraged to use a self-screening checklist first to determine whether
the new program is suitable for them or their operation. It will be available
on NRCS Web sites and at NRCS field offices.
After self-screening, the producer's current and proposed conservation
practices are entered in the conservation measurement tool (CMT). This
tool estimates the level of
environmental performance to be achieved by a producer implementing and
maintaining conservation activity. The conservation performance estimated
by the CMT will be used to rank applications. States will determine their
own priority resource concerns, one of the criteria that will be used
to rank applications. States will establish ranking pools to rank applications
with similar resource concerns.
NRCS field staff also will conduct on-site field verifications of applicants'
information obtained from the CMT. Once the potential participant has
been field verified and approved for funding, he or she must develop
a conservation stewardship plan.
For information about CSP, including eligibility requirements, producers
can visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/new_csp or visit their local NRCS field office.
USDA is finalizing the program's policies and procedures. The CSP interim
final rule, published in the Federal Register, is open
for public comment through Sept. 28.
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