The new deadline is this Friday for Nebraska’s farmers, ranchers and landowners to take part in the general sign-up for the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP.
Larry Lago, with the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, says it’s a rare chance to get involved with a premier conservation program.
“It’s kind of a unique opportunity as we don’t have general sign-ups very often,” Lago says. “CRP has a 25-year legacy of successfully protecting natural resources in every county through voluntary participation and it also provides significant economic and environmental benefits to those who participate in rural communities.”
Producers enroll land in the CRP plant long-term, resource-conserving cover crops in exchange for rental payments.
About 200,000 of the one-million acres that are enrolled in the program in Nebraska will expire this year.
“Nationwide, there’s about 30-million acres enrolled and actually six-and-a-half-million acres expire this fall,” Lago says.
USDA officials say CRP is the largest private lands carbon sequestration program in the country. They estimate the carbon sequestration on CRP ground in the year 2010 alone is the equivalent of taking almost ten-million cars off the road.
The original deadline of April 6th was extended a week.
For details, contact your nearest FSA Service Center.
By Dan Skelton, KICD, Spencer