Conservation Reserve Program

Conservation Reserve Program. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that USDA will accept 1.7 million acres offered under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) general sign-up. This is the 45th year for the program.

VILSACK: 28-thousand offers were extended to USDA to sign up acres in our CRP program. Roughly 1.9 million acres of offers we will be extending specific offers to 1.7 million acres of that number. So we’re excited about the opportunity to continue to focus on highly erodible land.

According to FSA Administrator Juan Garcia this was a shorter enrollment period due to the extension of the current Farm Bill.

GARCIA: At this particular time we have 27-million acres enrolled in CRP so we feel that we will have an opportunity later on as a farm bill is approved to have further sign ups and then target our sign ups to these environmentally sensitive lands to initiatives that will improve wildlife and water quality benefits.

Garcia says they use a five factor Environmental Benefits Index to rank contract proposals.

GARCIA: We rate our offers based on what we call EBI points in which we take into account the particular practices that a producer is willing to implement on that ground. And we look at mixed species of grass that will enhance wildlife, that will enhance air quality. We also look at the erodibility index of the soil so if a soil is classified as highly erodible naturally it would obtain more points.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.