Some CRP contract extensions to be made

Farm and Ranch May 5, 2009 Some producers currently enrolled in USDA's Conservation Reserve Program, CRP, will have an opportunity to modify and extend their existing contracts. Beverly Preston of the Farm Service Agency says this will be for contracts that expire this September. Preston: "There is about 1.5 million acres that are going to be offered either a three or five year extension to their current CRP contract. There is a total of 3.9 million that are expiring September 30th but we are only making this offer to 1.5 million acres." The limited offer is to help USDA keep to the new statutory CRP acreage limitation of 32 million acres. Preston says eligibility will be determined by the Environmental Benefit Index when landowner CRP offers were scored at the time they initially entered the program. Preston: "We will begin notifying the CRP participants by letter beginning on May 6th and participants that are going to be made this offer for extension will get letters that tell them whether they are going to be eligible for a three or a five year extension." The voluntary extension will run from May 18th through June 30th. Preston emphasizes this is not a general CRP sign up. In the Pacific Northwest CRP contracts from all types of sign ups expiring this September cover about 130-thosuand acres in Washington, 58-thousand acres in Idaho and nearly 21 thousand acres in Oregon. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.