Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)

What is it?

General CRP is an FSA program that pays producers to plant permanent vegetative cover on parts or all of an agricultural field that is considered highly erodible. The concept behind the program is to give producers economic incentive to reduce soil erosion, increase water quality and provide wildlife habitat. Acceptance of land into general CRP is based on competitive "bids" or applications based on an "Environmental Benefits Index" (EBI) calculated on the environmental benefits to be gained from enrolling land in CRP. Those tracts with the highest EBI will be accepted. The length of the contract is typically 10 or 15 years.

What will I get paid?

FSA provides annual rental payments to participants based on the relative productivity of the soils within each county. The CRP rental rate for each offer is calculated in advance of enrollment. You will also be eligible to receive a 50% cost share for installing the practice.

What do I have to do?

Go to your USDA Service Center between March 27 and April 14 and speak with the FSA folks. Tell them you are interested in submitting a bid for Sign-up 33. They will work with you to identify which fields qualify for the program and tell you what your annual payments will be. You will have to complete an application and provide the type of practice you would like to do and options you are willing to perform in order to increase the chance that your "bid" will be accepted.

After the sign up period is closed FSA will rank the bids based one EBI score. If your score is above the national cutoff, you will get in. The tough part for the landowner/producer is that the EBI ranking cutoff is unknown until all applications are processed and ranked nationally. Therefore, it's essential that you submit the highest EBI score that you can.

How will it get planted and be maintained?

You have a number of options to plant and maintain the habitat:

  1. Pheasants Forever Habitat specialists- You can have the PF habitat specialist in your area do the seed ordering, prep work and planting for you. He can provide a turn key operation and in most cases within the cost share limitations set by FSA.
  2. You can rent PF or other organizations equipment and plant it yourself.
  3. You can use your own equipment and plant it yourself.

Tips and Hints on how to increase the chance of your "bid" being accepted:

  1. Reconfigure your field- If you reconfigure your fields so that you are only "bidding" in that part of the field that has the highest EBI (that part of your field that has the greatest slope) you will receive more points.
  2. Pick the correct practices- The type of practice you sign-up for will change the number of points your are awarded. The CP-4D (50pt.), CP-25 and CP-2 practices are all grass plantings that will give you maximum points.
  3. Plant shrubs and/or food plots- If you agree to plant a portion of your field (typically less than 5% of the field) to food plots and/or shrubs you will receive additional points.
  4. Reduce your annual payment- You can gain one point for every dollar that is bid below the maximum bid rate for those soils. Points are awarded on the basis of one point for each dollar the bid is below the maximum acceptable rate, up to 15 points.
  5. Reduce your cost share- If you take no cost-share, you get 10 points. Cost share is an all-or-nothing deal. If you accept cost share, you get 0 points.