USDA Announces National Application Period for New Conservation Stewardship Program

Continuous Enrollment for Farmers Begins Monday, August 10, 2009

Maryland Media Liaison:

Carol Hollingsworth, 443-482-2902

ANNAPOLIS, MD-- Aug. 6, 2009 – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced that the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will begin continuous sign-up for the new Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) on Monday, August 10 with the first application period cutoff scheduled for September 30, 2009. CSP is a voluntary program that encourages agricultural and forestry producers to maintain existing conservation activities and adopt additional ones on their operations.

"This program will help the Nation's agricultural and forestry producers reach greater levels of conservation performance, which will help protect our land and water," USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan said. "The conservation benefits derived from maintaining and enhancing natural resources will improve the quality of soil and water, assist in addressing global climate change, and encourage environmentally responsible energy production."

NRCS Maryland Assistant State Conservationist for Programs Mark Rose encourages farmers and forest land owners who are interested in CSP to visit their local field office as soon as possible to determine if their ag operation and conservation plans could make them eligible for CSP. “The Conservation Stewardship Program is a brand new program and is very different from the prior Conservation Security Program. The new program focuses on farmers installing additional new conservation practices on their land. If you had enrolled land under the prior Conservation Security Program, you can not enroll that same land into the new Conservation Stewardship Program,“ said Rose.

Eligible applicants may include individual landowners, operators, legal entities, and Indian tribes. Agricultural and forestry producers must submit applications by September 30, 2009 to be considered for funding in the first ranking period.

To apply for the newly revamped CSP, potential participants will be encouraged to use a self-screening checklist first to determine whether the new program is suitable for them or their operation. It will be available on the NRCS Web site at www.nrcs.usda.gov and at NRCS field offices. After self-screening, the producer's current and proposed conservation practices are entered in the Conservation Measurement Tool (CMT). This tool estimates the level of environmental performance to be achieved by a producer implementing and maintaining conservation activity. The conservation performance estimated by the CMT will be used to rank applications. States will determine their own priority resource concerns, one of the criteria that will be used to rank applications. States will establish ranking pools to rank applications with similar resource concerns.

NRCS field staff also will conduct on-site field verifications of applicants' information obtained from the CMT. Once the potential participant has been field verified and approved for funding, he or she must develop a conservation stewardship plan.

For information about CSP, including eligibility requirements, farmers can visit www.nrcs.usda.gov/new_csp or visit their local NRCS field office.

USDA is finalizing the program's policies and procedures. The CSP interim final rule, published in the Federal Register, is open for public comment through Sept. 28.

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