hose landowners who wish to apply for contracts with USDA’s NRCS for both EQIP and CSP have until December 3 to be considered for the next batch of funding which is for FY 2022. South Dakota State NRCS Assistant Conservationist for State programs Jeff VanderWilt says the Environmental Quality Incentives and Conservation Stewardship Programs remain popular in South Dakota.

He describes the differences in the two programs with EQIP generally fitting livestock producers concerns and CSP is geared to using management techniques to improve the land owners overall operation.

VanderWilt says they’re working with producers to target resource cvoncerns with both EQIP and CSP.

VanderWilt notes that to show just how popular CSP and EQIP are in South Dakota, typically NRCS sees 1200 to 1400 applications made in both programs together.