No longer restricted to those living on a handful of watersheds, the new Conservation Stewardship Program is picking up steam with some 225 applications in North Dakota alone that have now been approved for 2010 funding.
"The program under the 2002 farm bill was very well received," says Jennifer Heglund, assistant state conservationist for programs at the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Bismarck, N.D. "There was a lot of interest, and those individuals that were not in eligible watersheds showed some disappointment."
Eligibility
The new farm bill changed the Conservation Security Program to a nationwide one and renamed it the Conservation Stewardship Program. It is available on tribal and private agricultural lands, "as well as nonindustrial private forest lands" in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the Carib-
bean and Pacific islands areas, according to NRCS information. "The program provides equitable access to all producers, regardless of operation size, crops produced or geographic location."
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Eligible lands include cropland, grassland, prairie land, improved pastureland, rangeland, nonindustrial private forest land and agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe, it says.
Through five-year contracts, "payments will be made as soon as practical after October of each year for contract activities installed and maintained in the previous year," it says.
Payments to farms or ranches may not exceed $40,000 in any year and $200,000 during any five-year period.
CSP for cropland
David Burkland was the first farmer in Grand Forks County, N.D., to be approved for the new program. His family raises wheat, barley and corn. His farm already had been enrolled in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and he also had some acreage in the Conservation Reserve Program.
He sees the new conservation program as a way to try out a few more practices he thinks will be good for his farm and his land.
"I think the overall decision process to go with CSP was that there were still some ideas out there that we wanted to try, some things we wanted to do," he says. "CSP was kind of an enabler for us to possibly recover some of the costs associated with having to do these things."
The program requires that Burkland enroll all acreage in production and select a number of eligible enhancements that he intends to set up on his farm. He has signed up to change how he applies fertilizers to reduce fuel usage and how he manages drift. He intends also to enhance his abilities in no-till soil preparation and residue management.
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The program offers enhancement support in several areas, including air quality, soil erosion and energy.
"I think it has a good fit on our farm because we're trying to make some changes in the way we farm," Burkland says.
Signing up
Applicants must fill out 10-page questionnaires that are accepted year-round, though funding cycles only take place at the end of each year. Applicants are ranked according to their existing conservation stewardship practices and the list of enhancements they want to make.
Funding has been made available for 12.7 million acres nationally and 550,000 acres in North Dakota, where farmers and ranchers submitted just a bit more than 400 applications for the coming year, covering about 1 million acres. With 225 approvals made for 550,000 funded acres, applicants had a better than 50-50 chance of being approved.
Heglund anticipates average payment per acre cropland to run from $12 to $22 and from $5 to $14 an acre for grassland.
Those with contracts in the Conservation Security Program, the precursor of the new stewardship program, will continue as authorized, Heglund says.
Information: www.nrcs.usda.gov/new_csp .
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Enhancement activities
- Air quality.
- Animal.
- Energy.
- Plant.
- Soil erosion.
- Soil quality.
- Water quality.
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- Water quantity.
- Special projects.
