Source: USDA, 10/15/20 The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is issuing $1.68 billion in payments to agricultural producers and landowners for the 21.9 million acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which provides annual rental payment for land devoted to conservation purposes.
“CRP is one of the many 'tools’ that USDA offers to producers and private landowners to help best manage sensitive lands,” said Richard Fordyce, Administrator of USDA’s Farm Service Agency. “Lands enrolled in this program conserve soil, improve water quality, provide habitat for wildlife, sequester carbon, and benefit agricultural operations.” Through CRP, farmers and ranchers establish long-term, resource-conserving plant species, such as approved grasses or trees, to control soil erosion, improve water quality, and enhance wildlife habitat on cropland. Farmers and ranchers who participate in CRP help provide numerous benefits to the nation’s environment and economy. Signed into law in 1985, CRP
is one of the largest private-lands conservation programs in the U.S. It was
originally intended to primarily control soil erosion and potentially stabilize
commodity prices by taking marginal lands out of production. The program has
evolved over the years, providing many conservation and economic benefits. The
program marks its 35-year anniversary this December. Program successes include: =
Preventing more than 9 billion tons of soil from eroding, which
is enough soil to fill 600 million dump trucks; =
Reducing nitrogen and phosphorous runoff relative to annually
tilled cropland by 95 and 85 percent respectively; =
Sequestering an annual average of 49 million tons of greenhouse
gases, equal to taking 9 million cars off the road; =
Creating more than 3 million acres of restored wetlands while
protecting more than 175,000 stream miles with riparian forest and grass
buffers, which is enough to go around the world 7 times; and =
Benefiting bees and other pollinators and increased populations
of ducks, pheasants, turkey, bobwhite quail, prairie chickens, grasshopper
sparrows, and many other birds. The successes of CRP contribute to USDA’s Agriculture
Innovation Agenda and its
goal of reducing the environmental footprint of U.S. agriculture by half by
2050. Earlier this year, Secretary Perdue announced the department-wide
initiative to align resources, programs, and research to position American
agriculture to better meet future global demands.
CRP participants with
contracts effective beginning on October 1, 2020, will receive their first
annual rental payment in October 2021. For more information on CRP, visit fsa.usda.gov or contact your local FSA
county office.
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