Sign-Up Begins for USDA Conservation Stewardship Program

Continuous Enrollment for Producers Begins Aug. 10

EAST LANSING, Aug. 7, 2009 – Michigan agricultural producers and forest owners can begin signing up for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Conservation Stewardship Program on August 10 with the first signup period cutoff scheduled for September 30. The voluntary program offers program payments to producers that maintain existing conservation activities and adopt additional ones on their operations.

The Conservation Stewardship Program is a new program created under the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. CSP is administered by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service. Lands eligible for the program include cropland, grassland, improved pastureland, rangeland, non-industrial private forestland and agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe. Eligible applicants may include individual landowners, legal entities, and Indian tribes.

Under the new program producers will enroll their entire agricultural or forestry operation into the program. Producers who are accepted in the program will receive program payments based on the existing conservation measures they maintain and new conservation measures they agree to implement.

To apply for CSP, potential participants are encouraged to use a self-screening checklist to determine whether the new program is suitable for them or their operation. Producers can submit applications at their local NRCS field office. Applications submitted by producers who have completed the self-screening checklist will be ranked competitively according to national and state priority resource concerns.

NRCS field staff will conduct on-site field verifications before potential participants are approved for funding. Approved participants must also develop a conservation stewardship plan.

CSP replaces the Conservation Security Program which was only available to producers in designated watersheds. The program will be offered to producers nationwide through continuous sign-ups. Agricultural and non-industrial private forestry producers must submit applications by Sept. 30 to be considered for funding in the first ranking period. Congress capped the annual acreage enrollment at 12,769,000 acres for each fiscal year nationwide.

For information about CSP, including eligibility requirements, producers can visit www.mi.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/csp.html or visit their local NRCS field office.
USDA is finalizing the program's policies and procedures. The CSP interim final rule, published in the Federal Register, is open for public comment through Sept. 28.
 

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