FARM SERVICE AGENCY ANNOUNCES ACCEPTED CRP OFFERS IN IDAHO

Boise--The USDA Farm Service Agency accepted 116,434 acres in Idaho into the 43rd Conservation Reserve Program.

Ninety-five percent of the offers made by Idaho landowners were accepted. Nationwide, the agency accepted 3.9 million acres, bringing the total to 29.6 million acres. 

CRP has a 25-year legacy of successfully protecting the nation's natural resources through voluntary participation, while providing significant economic and environmental benefits to rural communities across the United States.

“Once farmland is developed, it's gone forever, said Dick Rush, Idaho State Executive Director.  We can help preserve the land for duck nesting habitat, upland birds, wetlands, and wildlife. It also provides benefits for specific conservation practices, including new benefits for pollinator practices."

In 2011, as a result of CRP, nitrogen and phosphorous losses from farm fields were reduced by 623 million pounds and 124 million pounds respectively. Nationally, CRP has restored more than two million acres of wetlands and associated buffers and reduced soil erosion by more than 300 million tons per year. 


CRP also provides $1.8 billion annually to landowners—dollars that make their way into local economies, supporting small businesses and creating jobs. In addition, CRP is the largest private lands carbon sequestration program in the country. 


By placing vulnerable cropland into conservation, CRP sequesters carbon in plants and soil, and reduces both fuel and fertilizer usage. In 2010, CRP resulted in carbon sequestration equal to taking almost 10 million cars off the road.

The program pays landowners to keep land as farmland and to preserve highly erodible land to improve habitat and reduce sediment and nutrient runoff and reduce wind erosion. Landowners enrolled in the program receive annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to establish long-term, resource-conserving covers on eligible farmland. Accepted contracts will become effective October 1, 2012.

The national average rental rate per acre for the current signup is $51.24.