USDA has allocated more than $1.77 billion this year to agricultural producers and landowners through its Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). This program plays a major role in the USDA’s efforts to promote climate-smart agriculture and forestry on working lands.
Currently, over 667,000 participants in the CRP have received payments from the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) for their voluntary conservation initiatives covering more than 23 million acres of private land. Since 2021, the CRP has witnessed a 21% increase in enrolled acres, reflecting the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to enhancing the program.
The top five states receiving CRP participant payments are as follows:
1. Iowa - $402,508,900
2. Illinois - $172,723,800
3. Minnesota - $150,773,400
4. South Dakota - $129,545,200
5. Missouri - $99,849,600
The CRP is a voluntary program in which agricultural producers commit environmentally sensitive agricultural land to conservation purposes. Participants establish resource-conserving plant species, such as approved grasses or trees, to control soil erosion, improve water quality, and create wildlife habitat. In return, FSA provides participants with rental payments and cost-share assistance, with contract durations ranging from 10 to 15 years.
Since 2021, the FSA has implemented several changes to the CRP program, including:
- Introducing a new climate-smart practice incentive for CRP general and continuous signups aimed at rewarding participants who implement conservation practices enhancing carbon sequestration and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Enabling additional soil rental rate adjustments or rate flexibilities, including potential rate increases where warranted.
- Increasing payments for practice incentives from 20 percent to 50 percent, based on establishment cost, for continuous CRP practices.
- Raising payments for water quality practices rates from 10% to 20% for specific water quality-enhancing practices available through the CRP continuous signup, such as grassed waterways, riparian buffers, and filter strips.
- Establishing a Grassland CRP minimum rental rate benefiting over 1,000 counties with rates currently below the $13 minimum.
FSA has also enhanced the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) to make it more accessible to a broader range of agricultural producers and conservation partners. These improvements include greater flexibility for partners to contribute matching funds in cash, in-kind contributions, or technical assistance. Additionally, FSA is investing in additional full-time staff dedicated to collaborating with CREP partners and program specialists in state offices.
In 2023, FSA enrolled 3.9 million acres in CRP, including 927,000 acres through General CRP, 2.3 million acres in Grassland CRP, and 694,000 acres in Continuous CRP.
