Recent announcements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on their conservation programs bring a mix of good news and bad news. While USDA announced a new opportunity to enroll pivot corners in the Conservation Reserve Program, the administration's proposed budget for 2016 proposes a significant cut for both the Conservation Security Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, according to the Wildlife Management Institute.

The President's recently released fiscal 2016 proposed budget would cut three million acres from the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). CSP is a voluntary program that provides economic incentives for landowners to implement or expand various conservation practices on their lands. The proposed acreage cap translates to a $486 million reduction in funding for the program. In addition, the budget request reduces funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) by $373 million. Technical and financial assistance to help landowners improve water quality, reduce erosion and improve wildlife habitat is offered through EQIP. If enacted, these proposed cuts would be in addition to the nearly $540 million reduction in funding that Congress cut from the programs in legislation passed last December to implement the fiscal 2015 budget bill. This level of reduction in funding for these programs would very likely affect the potential conservation improvements hoped for in the newly implemented Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which relies on CSP and EQIP to help achieve landscape-scale, regional conservation improvements.

The good news is that USDA's Farm Services Agency (FSA) recently announced a loosening of restrictions for enrolling unirrigated corners of crop fields in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Many producers use central pivot irrigation systems in the western part of the nation's cornbelt where rainfall is substantially lower than farther east. These center-pivot based systems water crops in a circle that are usually in a rectangular or square field. The corners of these fields are not watered by the irrigation system and producers rarely plant crops there. These corners provide opportunities to incorporate more grassland habitat on the landscape. Pivot corners were previously eligible for inclusion in CRP if they were connected to other corners by a linear strip of grassland. A number of conservation groups recognized that a high proportion of these corners were not eligible for CRP due to not having the connecting strip of habitat and worked with FSA to get this requirement dropped. FSA estimates that this change could result in an additional 250,000 acres being enrolled in the program.

Interest and enrollment in CRP has declined in recent years due to high commodity prices. This new opportunity to incorporate more grassland habitat on the landscape comes as welcome news to many in the conservation community. More information on this change is available by referring to FSA's Notice CRP 780. (pmr)