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STATEWIDE SIGN-UP FOR THE NEW CONSERVATION STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM

First  Sign-Up:  August 10 –September 30

 

Laramie, WY – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service is offering a continuous sign-up for the new Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), State Conservationist Xavier Montoya recently announced.  The sign-up began August 10, with the first cutoff for ranking purposes scheduled for September 30.

 

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) administers CSP, a voluntary conservation program that encourages agricultural and forestry producers to maintain existing conservation activities and adopt additional ones on their operations. 

 

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (the Farm Bill) authorized CSP.  Congress renamed and implemented major changes to the former Conservation Security Program to improve its availability and appeal to agricultural and forestry producers.

 

Wyoming has designated five CSP geographic areas as follows:  Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast and Southwest.  Applications will be ranked within each geographic area (not statewide or nationwide). 

 

Under the new CSP, eligible lands include privately owned cropland, grassland, pastureland, rangeland, non-industrial private forestland and agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe. 

 

To obtain a Conservation Stewardship Program contract, several requirements must be met including: (1) applicant is listed as the operator in the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) farm records management system for the operation being offered for enrollment;  (2) it can be documented that applicant controls the land for the term of the contract and includes all eligible land in the entire operation in that contract;  (3) applicant complies with highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions and  (4) applicant complies with Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) provisions.

 

The annual payment limitation for a person or legal entity is $40,000.  A person or legal entity cannot exceed $200,000 for all contracts entered into during any five-year period. 

 

To apply for the new program, interested parties are encouraged to use a self-screening checklist first to determine whether the new program is suitable for them or their operation.  The checklist is available at www.nrcs.usda.gov/new_csp or from local NRCS field offices.

 

             After the self-screening, proposed conservation activities are entered in the conservation measurement tool (CMT) which estimates the level of environmental performance to be achieved.  The conservation performance estimated by the CMT will be used to rank applications.

 

             “If interested in applying, stop by the Laramie Field Office at 5015 Stone Road and pick up a self-screening checklist, or call 307-745-3698,” said Ruben Vasquez, NRCS district conservationist.  “Once the self-screening checklist has been completed, we can decide on the next step.”