USDA official says no general CRP sign up this year

Farm and Ranch March 30, 2009 Contracts on millions of acres of Conservation Reserve land are due to expire in September. But will there be a new CRP general sign up this year for landowners who may want to continue in the CRP or for new land to enroll? Stephenson: "We do not intend on having a general sign up this year. We do intend on having a general sign up next year." That was Robert Stephenson, a USDA Farm Service Agency official speaking to a congressional hearing last week. He said producers do have some CRP options open to them even without a general sign up. Stephenson: "There is about four million acres of land coming due, contracts expiring this fall. They could return to production. If their land is eligible for continuous sign up they can reenroll the land under a continuous sign up contract. They can do that." Or try to get new land into a new contract next year, however under the 2008 Farm Bill maximum acres allowed in CRP nationally go down from 39 to 32 million acres. In the northwest, Washington has contracts expiring on about 121 thousand general CRP acres this September. Adams county has the most at 18 thousand acres. In Idaho contracts expire on about 58 thousand general CRP acres. Oneida county has the most acres at 15 thousand. General CRP contracts expire on about 20 thousand acres in Oregon this September. Gilliam county has the most of those at 63-hundred acres. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.