U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced USDA is opening enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program with higher payment rates, new incentives and a more targeted focus on the program’s role in climate change mitigation. Jessica Kochick, Federal Farm Policy Organizer with the Minnesota Land Stewardship Project says CRP has an important role in protecting land that’s not as suitable for planting of traditional crops and also provides important incentives to producers.
She says her group is pleased with CRP expansion but wants to see that go a step further.
Kochick says more funding and expansion is needed for some other conservation programs, mainly CSP and EQIP.
In 2021 CRP is capped at 25 million acres with 20.8 million acres currently enrolled. That cap will gradually increase to 27 million acres by 2023. Acres currently enrolled in CRP mitigate more than 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide
equivalent.
