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 Through CRP, farmers and ranchers establish long-term,
resource-conserving plant species, such as approved grasses or
trees, to control soil erosion, improve water quality, and
enhance wildlife habitat on cropland. Farmers and ranchers who
participate in CRP help provide numerous benefits to the
nation’s environment and economy.
Signed into law in 1985, CRP is one of the largest private-lands
conservation programs in the United States. It was originally
intended to primarily control soil erosion and potentially
stabilize commodity prices by taking marginal lands out of
production. The program has evolved over the years, providing
many conservation and economic benefits. The program marks its
35-year anniversary this December.
Program successes include:
Preventing more than 9 billion tons of soil from eroding,
which is enough soil to fill 600 million dump trucks;
Reducing nitrogen and phosphorous runoff relative to
annually tilled cropland by 95 and 85 percent, respectively;
Sequestering an annual average of 49 million tons of
greenhouse gases, equal to taking 9 million cars off the road;
Creating more than 3 million acres of restored wetlands
while protecting more than 175,000 stream miles with riparian
forest and grass buffers, which is enough to go around the world
seven times; and
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Benefiting bees and other pollinators and
increasing populations of ducks, pheasants, turkey, bobwhite quail,
prairie chickens, grasshopper sparrows, and many other birds.
The successes of CRP contribute to USDA’s Agriculture
Innovation Agenda and its goal of reducing the environmental
footprint of U.S. agriculture by half by 2050. Earlier this year,
Secretary Perdue announced the department-wide initiative to align
resources, programs, and research to position American agriculture
to better meet future global demands.
CRP participants with contracts effective beginning on October 1,
2020, will receive their first annual rental payment in October
2021.
For more information on CRP, visit fsa.usda.gov or contact
your local FSA county office.
[USDA Farm Service Agency] |
