A New Federal Program Rewards Farmers and Ranchers for Their Conservation
Efforts
The week of August 23, 2004, has been an historic week in the United States for conservationists
and the agricultural community. During that week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
recognized some of America’s best conservationists in celebrations here in
Kansas and around the nation.
This recognition – and a monetary incentive to match – came with the formal
beginning of this nation’s newest conservation program -- the Conservation
Security Program (CSP).
Conservation on a single farm or ranch can reflect years, decades, or even
generations of hard work. The soil, water, air, plants and wildlife of our
nation are in better condition today because of the good stewardship of our
farmers and ranchers.
CSP is the first conservation program specifically designed to reward the
best stewards of America‘s agricultural land and to motivate other producers
to do more conservation on their farms and ranches. Secretary of Agriculture
Ann Veneman calls CSP a program to, “Reward the best and motivate the rest.”
The producers who are a part of CSP this year are leaders in a new golden
age of conservation. CSP is part of a record investment in conservation that
started when President Bush signed the farm bill of 2002. Through the farm
bill, Congress, the Administration, and the American people are investing an
additional $17 billion in natural resources conservation on private lands.
CSP rounds out the already existing portfolio of USDA conservation programs
available to help our nation’s farmers and ranchers reach their environmental
goals of conserving, maintaining, and improving America’s natural resources
and environment.
The self-assessment approach we used during this sign-up period makes it
easier than ever for producers to participate in USDA’s conservation
programs. The self-assessment process allowed them to work on their
applications at home, any time, rather than having to spend workday hours in a
USDA Service Center office.
In addition to being more convenient for producers, the self-assessment
also freed up time of NRCS workers, making them available to help others
needing technical assistance. We estimate that the self-assessment process
freed up more than 2 staff years of time during the 24-day sign-up period
alone!
We are signing $2.4 million in CSP contracts in two watersheds that include
Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma: in the northcentral Kansas the Lower Little
Blue River Watershed (Kansas counties--Republic, Washington, and Marshall and
Nebraska counties--Thayer, Saline, Fillmore, and Jefferson) and in
southcentral Kansas the Lower Salt Fork of the Arkansas River Watershed
(Kansas counties--Barber and Harper and Oklahoma counties--Kay, Alfalfa,
Grant, Garfield, and Noble). This is about 5 percent of $41 million in CSP
funding available nationally.
Nationally nearly a third of all the landowners in participating watersheds
either attended a CSP workshop or visited one of our field offices to find out
more about the program. We were able to fund all of those who qualified --
early 2,200 in all.
CSP is destined to be a mainstay not only in the way the United States gets
conservation on the land, but how we get agricultural products to our people.
The CSP contracts we are signing this week are the first steps toward an
innovative approach to conservation that will encompass every part of the
country. President Bush has included funding in his 2005 budget to allow
producers in every State to participate in this program – more than five times
this year’s funding – a total of $209 million.
The success of CSP will be good for individual producers and good for
everyone who lives in a watershed – which means all of us – because everyone
lives in a watershed.
National Fiscal Year 2004 Totals
Approved Contracts: 2,188
Percentage by Tier: Tier I: 37%, Tier II: 40%, Tier III:
23%
Total Payments: $35 million
Average Contract Payment: $9,545
Acres Enrolled: about 1.88 million
Kansas Fiscal Year 2004 Totals
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