Farm Bill Conservation Programs

Introduced in the 1985 Farm Bill, the Conservation Reserve Program incentivizes landowners to put a portion of their acreage into conservation cover, particularly on lands that would be more productive as wildlife habitat than they would be for crops. 

It’s easy to see why the Conservation Reserve Program has been one of the nation’s most important conservation programs for farmers, wildlife, and sportsmen and women. First, many of the species we love to pursue find habitat and forage in farm country thanks to the CRP. 

Without CRP, 40 million sportsmen and women would lose access to hunting and fishing opportunities across rural America.

In the northern plains states, Conservation Reserve Program acres make up a vital share of nesting habitat for more than half of North America’s waterfowl. CRP helps landowners to voluntarily restore and supplement sage grouse habitat across the West, providing a much needed boost to a species in decline. Whitetail deer, black bears, pheasants, quail, wild turkeys, and countless other species have also been rebounding thanks to the conservation of millions of acres of grasslands and buffers through CRP.

The Conservation Reserve Program’s impact on water quality is especially notable. Through smart land management decisions, like the installation of waterway buffers, CRP protects more than 170,000 stream miles with trees and grasses that filter agricultural runoff. This improvement means cleaner drinking water, fewer algal blooms, and better fish habitat near CRP fields and downstream. 

The program also helps with the following:

• Creates habitat for pollinators like bees and butterflies
• Prevents erosion
• Builds soil health
• Mitigates the impacts of flooding and drought
• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions

If that weren’t enough, many farmers, ranchers, and forest owners also open CRP acres to hunters and anglers in their communities. Given all of these benefits, the CRP is highly cost-effective, making up just a fraction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget.

But even as the Farm Bill’s most popular conservation program, the CRP has faced many challenges. In the last decade, landowners clamoring to enroll were faced with historically low application acceptance rates. Acreage caps were scaled down as the federal budget was tightened. In the 2018 Farm Bill, Congress acknowledged rampant demand for CRP by boosting the acreage cap back up to 27 million acres, but that’s a far cry from the 37 million acres available at the program’s height, and the additional cost of growing the program was paid for by placing a cap on rental rate payments.

Further changes to how the USDA administers the program made it less attractive to farmers and, at the close of 2020, enrollment fell to a historic low. 

Without a strong CRP, the northern plains states would lose much of their duck breeding habitat, greater sage grouse in the West would be at greater risk of population decline, and brook trout would disappear from Eastern headwaters. Without CRP, 40 million sportsmen and women would lose access to hunting and fishing opportunities across rural America. The TRCP and its coalition partners demand a stronger Conservation Reserve Program in the next Farm Bill.

The Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, once commonly known as “open fields,” is the only federal program dedicated to creating public access on private lands. 

Championed by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s founder, Jim Range, VPA-HIP helps states create innovative ways of incentivizing private landowners to open their lands to the public for wildlife-dependent recreation. It is the only federal tool aimed at increasing recreational access on private lands, yet it is not nearly the most well known of Farm Bill conservation programs. 

Established and funded through the 2008, 2014, and 2018 Farm Bills, VPA-HIP makes grants to states to increase public access to private lands for hunting, fishing, and other forms of outdoor recreation. VPA-HIP funding is also utilized to provide technical resources and assistance to landowners for wildlife habitat improvement and enhancement projects. And the program allows states to assume liability, alleviating a roadblock for many landowners to open their lands to the public. 

If you’ve used a state walk-in access program to hunt or fish on private land, you’ve experienced what the Voluntary Public Access program can do.

Often layered with other Farm Bill conservation programs, such as the Conservation Reserve Program or Wetland Reserve Easements, VPA-HIP increases the public benefit of these powerful conservation tools by adding a recreational access component to private lands managed for conservation.

Download our report highlighting the diverse outdoor recreation opportunities made possible by the Voluntary Public Access program on more than 3 million acres of private land across 15 states.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program is a voluntary conservation program that allows farmers to enhance water quality, strengthen wildlife habitat, and reduce soil erosion and sedimentation. Through this program, the Natural Resources Conservation Service provides funding and assistance directly to producers, working with them to develop conservation practices that are tailored to their specific property. 

EQIP can help reduce water and soil contamination, mitigate impacts of drought and weather volatility, and support precision agriculture. It can be used on cropland, rangeland, pastureland, and non-industrial private forestland.

EQIP also incentivizes landowners and farmers to incorporate cover crops into their planting rotation. Cover crops are typically planted after row crops like corn and soybeans are harvested and include legumes, grasses, grains, and root vegetables.

The benefits of cover crops to soil, water, and wildlife are significant. The USDA reports cover crops “control erosion, add fertility and organic material to the soil, improve soil tilth, increase infiltration and aeration of the soil, and improve overall soil health.”

Here are some examples of cover crops and their benefits to fish, wildlife, and farmers:

• Radishes are a great late-season food source for whitetail deer and their taproots serve as a natural tiller, breaking up compacted soil.
• Winter wheat provides a hearty meal for wild turkeys, creates early-spring cover for nesting ducks and pheasants, and prevents soil erosion between planting seasons.
• Clover and alfalfa are great sources of protein for wild turkeys, and they attract some of the bird’s favorite insects.
• Rye and brassicas can provide nesting and brood-rearing habitat for pheasants and quail, as long as they are not tilled or sprayed during the nesting and brood-rearing season.

If cover crops are not planted, a field might be left bare for up to seven months while waiting for the next row crop planting. And, as our nation learned during the days of the Dust Bowl, that bare soil is vulnerable to erosion caused by wind, rain, and snowmelt. Many of the cover crops mentioned above can slow the incremental loss of nutrient-rich topsoil, keeping polluted runoff out of lakes and streams and preventing algal blooms, which are detrimental to fish and our fishing opportunities.

Landowners continue to rely on Farm Bill conservation programs like EQIP to facilitate the use of these cover crops for all of these benefits.

The Agriculture Conservation Easements Program helps to restore wetlands, grasslands, and working farms and ranches through conservation easements.

Easements establish a legal agreement between a landowner and a government agency or land trust that permanently limits certain development on the land. This preserves the habitat, or in some cases access to public lands, for future generations while keeping the property in private ownership.

The goal of ACEP easements, in particular, is to keep working lands working and to restore and enhance wetlands. Wetlands not only provide prime habitat for waterfowl and other important species, they also sequester carbon, improve water quality, mitigate impacts of flooding, and maintain surface water during dry spells.  

The Agriculture Conservation Easements Program provides great incentives for expanding natural infrastructure and mitigating the impacts of climate change. 

The Regional Conservation and Partnership Program funds partnerships between conservation groups and agricultural producers to enhance soil, water, and wildlife conservation in multi-state or watershed-scale projects.  These largescale projects take significant on-the-ground collaboration and, as a result, their positive impacts to conservation are outsized. 

State, local, and nonprofit partners match federal funds one to one. Funds are distributed 50 percent to multi-state projects and 50 percent in eight critical conservation areas. To qualify for funding, projects must help communities improve water quality, combat drought, enhance soil health, support wildlife habitat, and protect agricultural viability.

To view an interactive map of successful RCPP projects click here.