# Presentation: 056799

## USDA-NRCS Information Technology Seminar 2002 

- William Hunt
- State Conservationist
- Minnesota

## Conservation Provisions of the 2002 Farm Bill

- Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002

## The 2002 Farm Bill

- Represents the single most significant commitment of resources toward conservation on private lands in the Nation’s history
- Applies to all natural resources, including soil, water, air, and wildlife
- Places strong emphasis on the conservation of working lands, ensuring that land remain both healthy and productive

## The 2002 Farm Bill (cont’d)

- Provides farmers and ranchers with voluntary conservation programs commensurate with regulatory challenges they face
- Builds upon past conservation gains
- Responds to the call for a balanced portfolio of tools for conservation, including technical assistance, cost-sharing, land retirement, and a new Stewardship Incentives Program

## The 2002 Farm Bill (cont’d)

- Provides significant additional funding to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and ensures greater access by making more farmers and ranchers eligible through program streamlining
- Creates a new Conservation Security Program to reward producers who have practiced good stewardship and incentives for those who want to do more

## The 2002 Farm Bill (cont’d)

- Reauthorizes the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program to protect and restore habitat
- Reauthorizes the Farmland Protection Program to help protect the Nation’s best farmland from conversion to non-agricultural uses
- Reauthorizes the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program, and increases acreage caps for both

## The 2002 Farm Bill (cont’d)

- Provides permanent reauthorization of the Resource Conservation and Development Program

## Strongest Conservation Provisions

- 	“I am pleased that the compromise agreement on the Farm Bill resulted in better balanced commodity loan rates; spending that is no longer front-loaded; and the strongest conservation provisions of any Farm Bill ever passed by Congress.”
-                               – President George W. Bush

## Work Closely with Colleagues

-    “I encourage all of you to...work closely with your colleagues in the field and throughout the Department so that we can put together the best programs that we possibly can based upon this new Farm Bill.”
-           – Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman

## Bring Conservation to New Levels

- 	“The new Farm Bill represents an historic investment in conservation. Implementing it will bring conservation to new levels on America’s private lands.”
-                    – NRCS Chief Bruce I. Knight

## Conservation Provisions

- Conservation of Private Grazing Land Program
- Conservation Security Program
- Environmental Quality Incentives Program
- Farmland Protection Program

## Conservation Provisions (cont’d)

- Resource Conservation and Development Program
- Wetlands Reserve Program
- Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program

## 2002 Farm Bill Annual Funding($ millions)

| Program | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WRP
capped at 2,275,000 acres  | Up to 250,000 acres | Up to 250,000 acres | Up to 250,000 acres | Up to 250,000 acres | Up to 250,000 acres | Up to 250,000 acres |
| FPP | 50 | 100 | 125 | 125 | 100 | 97 |
| EQIP | 400 | 700 | 1,000 | 1,200 | 1,200 | 1,300 |
| Ground & Surface Water Conserva-tion | 25 | 45 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 60 |

## 2002 Farm Bill Annual Funding ($millions) (cont’d)

| Program | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| WHIP | 15 | 30 | 60 | 85 | 85 | 85 |
| Small Watershed Rehabilita-tion | 0 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 65 |
| Agriculture Manage-ment Assistance |  | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 20 |

## 2002 Farm Bill Annual Funding ($millions) (cont’d)

| Program | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CSP |  | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| Grassland Reserve Program
capped at 2 million acres |  | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD | TBD |

## Conservation of Private Grazing Land Program (CPGL)

## CPGL Key Points

- CPGL helps owners and managers of private grazing land address natural resource concerns while enhancing the economic and social stability of grazing land enterprises and the rural communities that depend on them
- NRCS will assist in developing conservation plans for farms, ranches, and other land units
- To receive technical assistance, a landowner or manager may contact NRCS or the local conservation district

## Conservation Security Program (CSP)

## CSP Key Points

- CSP provides payment for addressing resource concerns on working land
- The non-degradation standard is defined as the quality criteria in the Field Office Technical Guide

## CSP Key Points (cont’d)

- Resource concerns include:
- Water quality (ground and surface), water quantity
- Soil erosion, soil deposition, soil quality
- Air quality
- Plant suitability, plant condition, plant management
- Animal habitat, animal management

## CSP Key Points (cont’d)

- Quality Criteria establish the minimum treatment level necessary to adequately address identified resource concerns
- Resource Management System criteria are met when applied treatments resolve all identified resource problems according to the Quality Criteria

## CSP Key Points (cont’d)

- Quality Criteria are considered applied when conservation practices have been installed according to standards in the National Handbook of Conservation Practices
- Rewards ongoing stewardship on working lands and helps producers increase their level of conservation treatment

## CSP Key Points (cont’d)

- Helps owners and operators of agricultural lands maintain conservation practices and install additional practices
- CSP must undergo rule making – more information will be available soon

## Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)

## EQIP Key Points

- Promotes agricultural production and environmental quality as compatible National goals
- Provides technical and financial assistance
- Applications are accepted throughout the year

## EQIP Key Points (cont’d)

- Uses conservation district led local process
- Provides financial assistance for structural, vegetative, and management practices
- Requires an EQIP plan of operations
- Cost sharing may pay up to 75% of the costs of structural practices

## EQIP Key Changes

- Dramatically increases program funding
- Allows use of EQIP funds in the first year of the contract
- Eliminates animal unit cap on large confined livestock operations

## EQIP Key Changes (cont’d)

- Increases total payment amounts to $450,000 per individual over the life of the Farm Bill
- Reduces contract length
- Eliminates “bidding down”

## EQIP Key Changes (cont’d)

- Adds air quality as a purpose
- Adds non-industrial private forests as eligible land
- Requires 60% of funding for practices related to livestock production, including grazing land
- Eliminates conservation priority areas

## EQIP Key Changes (cont’d)

- Allows for up to 90% cost-share for limited resource or beginning farmers and ranchers
- Defines Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP) as a practice for assistance
- Allows for an incentive payment to develop a CNMP

## EQIP Key Changes (cont’d)

- Ground and Surface Water Conservation provisions will help farmers improve irrigation, convert to less water-intensive crops, or convert to dryland farming
- An innovation grant program will be initiated in fiscal year 2003

## Farmland Protection Program (FPP)

## FPP Key Points

- Provides matching funds to organizations with existing farmland protection programs to purchase conservation easements from landowners
- Landowners retain all rights to use the property for agriculture

## FPP Key Points (cont’d)

- Allows for 30-year or perpetual easements
- All conservation easements are held by the eligible entity

## FPP Key Changes

- Expanded to include non-governmental organizations as eligible entities and farm and ranchland containing historical and archeological sites as eligible land
- Allows a State, Tribal, or local government or non-governmental organization to supplement its share of the easement cost through a landowner’s donation, not to exceed 25% of the appraised fair market value of the conservation easement

## FPP Key Changes (cont’d)

- Historical and archeological resources on farms and ranches that may be protected under FPP are:
- Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, or
- Formally determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places, or
- Formally listed in the State or Tribal Register of Historic Places

## Resource Conservation and Development Program (RC&D)

## RC&D Key Points

- Improves the capability of local leaders to plan and carry out projects for resource conservation and community development
- Leads to sustainable communities, prudent land use, and sound management and conservation of natural resources

## RC&D Key Changes

- Permanent authorization
- More accurate description
- Adds role and definition of RC&D Councils
- Acknowledges participation by Tribes
- Requires a program evaluation and report to House and Senate committees of jurisdiction by June 30, 2005

## Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP)

## WRP Key Points

- Provides technical and financial assistance to eligible landowners to address wetland, wildlife habitat, soil, water, and related natural resource concerns on private lands in an environmentally beneficial and cost-effective manner

## WRP Key Points (cont’d)

- Goal is to achieve the greatest wetland functions and values along with optimum wildlife habitat on every acre enrolled
- At least 70% of each project area will be restored to the original natural condition, to the extent practicable; the remaining 30% may be restored to other than natural conditions

## WRP Key Points (cont’d)

- Three program participation options:
- 10-year cost-share agreement restorations
- 30-year conservation easement restorations
- Permanent easement restorations

## WRP Key Points (cont’d)

- Landowners control access, non-developed recreational activities, such as hunting and fishing, and the right to lease recreational uses for financial gain
- Other uses must be approved by NRCS

## WRP Key Points (cont’d) 

- NRCS has enlisted support of National and State level conservation entities to assist with program delivery
- Average project cost per acre is about $1,100 for financial assistance; average project size is about 177 acres
- 1,074,000 acres currently are enrolled in the program

## WRP Key Changes

- Allows the Secretary to enroll up to 250,000 acres annually, up to a total of 2,275,000 acres
- Adds an exemption to the 12-month ownership requirement for landowners who exercised their right to redemption after foreclosure

## Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP)

## WHIP Key Points

- Offers opportunities to landowners to improve and protect wildlife habitat on private and Tribal lands (the majority of land in U.S.)
- Provides cost-share payments under 5- to 10-year agreements for upland, wetland, riparian, and aquatic wildlife habitats

## WHIP Key Points (cont’d)

- Since 1998, nearly 11,000 landowners have enrolled more than 1.6 million acres, mostly for native prairie, but there is an increasing emphasis on riparian and aquatic habitats
- Provides cost-share payments under agreements, usually for 5 to 10 years, or shorter term agreements for practices to meet wildlife emergencies

## WHIP Key Changes

- Allows increased cost-share for long-term agreements of at least 15 years
- All changes in the 2002 language are currently covered by the rule

## Confidentiality

- The 2002 Farm Bill provides for confidentiality of:
- Case file data
- Location of National Resources Inventory data points

## The Natural Resources Conservation Service provides leadership in a partnership effortto help people conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment.

## For more information on conservation programs authorized in the 2002 Farm Bill, please visit the following web site:www.nrcs.usda.gov/farmbill/2002/products.html