Conservation Reserve Program

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The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a cost-share and rental payment program under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and is administered by the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA). Technical assistance for CRP is provided by the USDA Forest Service and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service(NRCS). NRCS's natural resources conservation programs help people reduce soil erosion, enhance water supplies, improve water quality, increase wildlife habitat, and reduce damages caused by floods and other natural disasters [3]. The CRP program encourages farmers to convert highly erodible cropland or other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover, such as tame or native grasses, wildlife plantings, trees, filter strips, or riparian buffers [4].

The program actually began in the 1950s as the conservation branch of the Soil Bank Program which was enacted by the Agriculture Act of 1954 [2]. The theory behind this branch of the Soil Bank Program was to take the highly erodible lands out of production and establish vegetative cover in order to counteract the erosion, thus helping out the agricultural community as a whole. In the beginning, the program called for three year contracts in which the government would pay for land improvements that increased soil, water, forestry, and wildlife quality if the farmer would agree not to harvest or graze contracted land [2].

Although the roots of the program had been established in the 1950s, the real public push for conservation didn’t begin until the 1980s. In the 1970s, farmers began to farm “fence row to fence row” removing precious habitat and vegetative stands from the fields, which ended up having detrimental effects on soil, water, and habitat quality throughout the agricultural regions [2]. Many programs would be established in the 1980s in order to fight this problem.

Contents

[edit] History

The CRP program has gone through many changes throughout its run. Whenever there is a new proposed Farm Bill, the CRP program is a large focus due to its importance and the high level of public knowledge and awareness of the program and its possible benefits.

[edit] 1985 Farm Bill

The Farm Bill of 1985 was the first act to officially establish the CRP program as we know it today. Many changes were made in this Farm Bill as compared to the regulations of the program set forth by the Agricultural Act of 1954. One of these important changes was setting the contract lengths from the previous three year commitment to anywhere from ten to fifteen years [7]. This was done as a way to get a greater benefit from the program by giving the new vegetative cover and other management practices time to get established and produce results. Also during the time of this Farm Bill, the amount of land allowed to be enrolled in the CRP program, which had to be specified as “highly erodible,” rose from five million in 1986 to forty million in 1990 [7]. Additionally, with this Farm Bill in place, the Secretary of Agriculture was able to provide up to 50% of the cost to the landowner for installing the conservation measure [7]. This Bill also prohibited any farming or grazing on land enrolled into CRP [7].

[edit] 1990 Farm Bill

The Farm Bill of 1990 included a major change to the CRP program. This new Farm Bill expanded the list of eligible lands to include marginal pasture lands converted to wetland or established as wildlife habitat prior to enactment of the 1990 Farm Bill, marginal pasturelands to be devoted to trees in or near riparian areas, lands that the Secretary determines causes an environmental threat to water quality, croplands converted to grass waterways or strips as part of a conservation plan, croplands subject to an easement of the useful life of newly created wildlife habitat, shelterbelts, or filter strips devoted to trees or shrubs, and lands that pose an off-farm environmental threat or pose a threat of degradation of production due to soil salinity [7]. This large increase in the types of eligible lands allowed for lands that weren’t really “highly erodible,” yet not in production either, to be profitable and beneficial to the environment around in the area.

Along with that alteration, there were other smaller differences between this Bill and the one previous. The Farm Bill of 1990 allowed limited fall and winter grazing on CRP land, it allowed “alley cropping” between hardwood tree stands in return for paying less money to the landowner, the 50% cost share was expanded from only vegetative cover to include hardwood trees, shelterbelts, windbreaks, and wildlife corridors, and the Bill allowed for land already in the CRP that had been converted to vegetative cover to be converted to hardwood trees, windbreaks, shelterbelts, wildlife corridors, or wetlands under certain circumstances [7]. This was a major turning point for the Farm Bill program as a whole because it changed the CRP program from seemingly an agricultural program to more of a natural resource conservation program.

[edit] 1996 Farm Bill

The 1996 Farm Bill did not make many changes to the CRP program. The major change made was in relation to early termination of CRP contracts. This bill allowed the termination of contracts after five years, with the exception of filterstrips, waterways, strips adjacent to riparian areas; lands with an erodibility index of over 15; and other lands that the Secretary deems to be highly sensitive [7]. Also, cropping history became a part of the eligibility system used to determine if a piece of land should be enrolled into the CRP program. Land was deemed eligible for CRP if it was cropped two of the last five years and meets at least one of the following requirements: had an erodibility index of eight or higher; was considered a cropped wetland; was associated with or surrounds non-cropped wetlands; was devoted to a highly beneficial environmental practice (for example, filter strips); was subject to scour erosion; was located in national or state CRP conservation priority areas; or was marginal pastureland in riparian areas [7]. Other changes came in the form of appropriation bills. The Appropriations Bill of 2001 provided an exception to the requirement that the owner plant vegetative cover when excessive rain fall or flooding made planting impossible and the Appropriations Bill of 2002 created a new pilot program for enrollment of wetland and buffer acreage in CRP [7].

[edit] 2002 Farm Bill

The changes made to the program in the 2002 Farm Bill changed the cropping history requirements from two out of the previous five years, to four out of the previous six [7]. This was done to make sure the land being enrolled in the program was actually cropland as opposed to land where somebody cropped it for two years just so it could be enrolled. The other change was done to increase the eligibility of lands. Under this Farm Bill, land under expiring contracts is automatically eligible to be considered for re-enrollment; contracts expiring during 2002 could be extended by one year; and existing covers must be retained, if feasible, when expiring contracts are re-enrolled [7].

[edit] 2008 Farm Bill

The 2008 Farm Bill stated that alfalfa grown in approved rotation practice is to be considered an agricultural commodity and can be used to fulfill requirement that eligible land be cropped in four out of six previous years, which had been challenged in the previous years [1]. Also for the first time, the bill allowed for management and cost share incentives for thinning to improve condition of resources on the land containing trees, windbreaks, shelterbelts, and wildlife corridors [1].

[edit] Agencies Involved

There are three main agencies involved in the CRP program, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), and the Farm Service Agency (FSA). The USDA is the governing body that works to form the CRP program with every Farm Bill and they are the top of the chain of command when it comes to the program. The CCC is the actual corporation, which is controlled by the USDA, that landowners enter into contracts with when enrolling in the program. Lastly, the FSA is the administrative body that runs the program for the USDA so that they don’t have to over see every aspect of the program.

[edit] Enrollment Procedures

Even though the CRP Program is beneficial to many aspects of the environment, not every landowner can become involved in the program. The main limiting factor in the amount of land allowed in the program is money. Each Farm Bill establishes the amount of money that will be budgeted for rental payments and cost share subsidies. With a limited amount of money available, the NRCS can only allow the most qualified land to be given incentive payments. There are very specific procedures and steps that are taken to decide whether or not land will be admitted to the program. Continuous Sign-Up Contracts

Environmentally desirable land devoted to certain conservation practices may be enrolled in CRP at any time under continuous sign-up [10]. Provided the land and the landowner meet the requirements, offers are automatically accepted and not subject to competitive bidding [10].

[edit] Landowner Requirements

To be eligible for CRP continuous sign-up enrollment, a landowner must have owned or operated the land for at least 12 months prior to submitting the offer, unless: the new landowner acquired the land due to the previous landowner’s death, ownership change occurred due to foreclosure where the owner exercised a timely right or redemption in accordance with state law, or the circumstances of the acquisition present adequate assurance to FSA that the new owner did not acquire the land for the purpose of placing it in CRP [10].

[edit] Land Requirements

To be eligible for placement in CRP, land must be either Cropland (including field margins) that is planted or considered planted to an agricultural commodity 4 of the previous 6 crop years from 1996 to 2001, and which is physically and legally capable of being planted in a normal manner to an agricultural commodity; or certain marginal pastureland that is enrolled in the Water Bank Program or suitable for use as a riparian buffer or for similar water quality purposes [10]. Also, the land must be eligible and suitable for certain conservation practices; which are riparian buffers, wildlife habitat buffers, wetland buffers, filter strips, wetland restoration, grass waterways, shelterbelts, living snow fences, contour grass strips, salt tolerant vegetation, and shallow water areas for wildlife [10].

[edit] Contract Payments

There are three main types of payments within the CRP program. They are rental payments, cost share assistance, and financial incentives.

[edit] Rental Payments

Landowners receive rental payments from the FSA in return for creating long-term land cover. These payments depend on two main factors. The amount received by landowners is determined by the productivity of the soils in the area and the average dry land crop rent or cash rent equivalent [10]. However, the annual rental rate may not exceed the FSA’s maximum payment amount [10].

[edit] Cost Share Assistance

“FSA provides cost share assistance to participants who establish approved cover on eligible cropland. The cost-share assistance can be an amount not more than 50 percent of the participants' costs in establishing approved practices” [10].

[edit] Financial Incentives

As part of or on top of rental rate agreements, the FSA also adds on an additional financial incentive of up to 20% of the soil rental rate for field windbreaks, grass waterways, filter strips, and riparian buffers [10]. Also, additional percentages could be added to the amount for maintenance and upkeep of the CRP areas [10].

[edit] Environmental Benefits

As stated earlier, CRP provides many services to the plants, animals, and ecosystems in the area. Even something as simple as a filter strip between an agricultural field and a stream can have a profound affect on the stability and health of the ecosystems and processes that occur in and around the field, as well as the Earth as a whole.[citation needed]

[edit] Carbon Dioxide

One of the most pressing issues throughout the entire world is the problem of global warming. This process has the potential to be devastating to ecosystems and species as a whole if the problem persists. On of the main factors in fighting this problem is the reduction of carbon sinks through out the world. Carbon sinks are vegetation patches that pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere during the process of photosynthesis and deposit it into the soil. The vegetation provided by increasing amount of CRP lands can be very useful for this task. As of October 31, 2008, there were 33,570,000 acres (135,900 km2) enrolled into CRP. This is an incredible amount of vegetative tissue that pulls carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere everyday, thus reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.[citation needed]

[edit] Water Quality

One of the most important benefits provided by CRP is the improvement of water quality due to the reduction of runoff reaching water bodies. The more common runoff materials from agricultural lands are nitrogen, phosphorus, and sediment which all alter the life and health of water bodies. The filter strips and buffer strips along the edge of agriculture fields intercept the runoff materials and keep them from leaving the field. The Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute estimated 278 million pounds less nitrogen and 59 million pounds less phosphorus left fields in 2007 due to CRP, 95 and 86 percent reductions, respectively.[citation needed]

[edit] Erosion

When the CRP program first started, the main goal was to curb the increasing amount of erosion due to aggressive farming. The affects of CRP on erosion is clearly visible today. CRP protects soil productivity by establishing conservation covers on fragile cropland to reduce sheet, rill and wind erosion. In 2007, CRP reduced soil erosion by an estimated 470 million tons from pre-CRP levels.[citation needed]

[edit] Wildlife Benefits

Along with the large amount of environmental benefits that come from CRP, there are also very large benefits to wildlife, most notably, birds. The most visible increase in bird population occurs in with Prairie Pothole ducks, ring-necked pheasants, sage grouse, and grassland birds. Here are the statistics;

  • The ducks in the Prairie Pothole region have seen a 30 percent increase in population since 1992;
  • Research has shown that a four percent increase in CRP lands in prime pheasant regions has led to a 22 percent in crease in pheasant populations;
  • The introduction of CRP in sage grouse territory has slowed the decline of these birds by 25 percent between 1970 and 1988; and
  • Studies have estimated that without the influx of CRP lands, grassland bird populations in the Prairie Pothole region could have declined anywhere from 2 to 52 percent [12].

[edit] See also

Ecology portal
Environment portal

[edit] External links

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