It encourages farmers to convert highly erodible cropland or other environmentally sensitive acreage to vegetative cover, such as tame or native grasses, wildlife plantings, trees, filter strips, or riparian buffers. Farmers receive an annual rental payment for the term of the multi-year contract.
Cost sharing is provided to establish the vegetative cover practices.
The program focuses on enrolling land that will yield the highest environmental benefits when taken out of production. Less erodible land better suited for planting crops may be allowed to return to production as contracts expire. Under CRP, the FSA will cost-share with landowners to implement an approved conservation plan and pay landowners annual rental payments for 10 to 15 years to maintain those practices. To be eligible, landowners must have owned their land for at least one year. Eligible lands must have been planted or considered planted to a commodity crop two years out of the five most recent years and must be physically and legally capable of being cropped.