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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Friday, December 20, 2024
Some 69 million acres were enrolled in the Conservation Stewardship Program in fiscal 2023, or about 8% of all U.S. farmland, according to a report by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
While thousands of producers line up for government assistance through CSP and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program each year, less than one-third have historically been able to get in. And that trend continued in 2023, despite both programs collectively being infused with $500 million in additional funding that year through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Hunting and angling groups enter the farm bill debate looking to protect funding for Title II programs and ensure fish and wildlife conservation efforts are given the same stature as soil and water within Agriculture Department programs.
USDA is releasing the first $850 million in conservation program funding from the $18 billion provided by the Inflation Reduction Act to ramp up the adoption of climate-smart farming practices.
Natural Resources Conservation Service offices in states like California are gearing up to take in a surge of Inflation Reduction Act funding centered around the conservation programs they operate.
Moving livestock from field to field to lessen the impact of their grazing practices is a practice slowly taking hold, and some proponents say new federal funding coupled with better outreach could get more producers on board.
The Agriculture Department plans to loosen up existing Conservation Reserve Program rules by allowing participants to request termination of their CRP contract if they are in their final year of the agreement.
Thousands of producers hoping to implement more conservation practices on their farms are lining up for government assistance through the Environmental Quality Incentives and Conservation Stewardship programs, as the Agriculture Department touts the promises of climate-smart agriculture as a mitigator of climate change. But these programs, despite their billion dollar budgets, aren’t equipped to deal with this demand, forcing the agency to turn away the majority of applicants.
Three major farm groups are hoping to double the amount of cover crops planted in the United States through an initiative targeting Midwestern corn and soybean farmers.
