NRCS Holds Educational Meeting
Under the sponsorship of the Glasscock County Soil and Water Conservation District, Natural Resources Conservation Service Assistant State Conservationist Elisha Kuehn made good on her earlier promise to bring an NRCS educational meeting to Glasscock County. On Feb. 12, with more than 30 people in attendance, Kuehn presented an overview of the agency’s work and along with Gary Grogin and Gary Askins, explained the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Continuous Conservation Reserve Program (CCRP). Ben Wilde, from the state soil and water conservation office, also contributed information.
Information presented at the meeting was too lengthy and detailed to be fully covered in this newsletter. The following is a brief summary of highlights.
EQIP Program Explained
EQIP is a program that addresses soil and water conservation concerns by providing technical, financial and educational assistance to participants who install environmentally prescribed practices. Both pastureland and cropland are eligible for the program and practices can include brush control, and irrigation systems. There is a $50,000 maximum cost-share per individual, $10,000 annually for five years.
There are currently three priority areas for EQIP in Glasscock County, the North Concho, Middle Concho and Sandy Land Resource areas. It is easier to have a project funded in a priority area than in a statewide area. Selected areas usually have a priority designation for 3 to 5 years. Signup for EQIP is year-round, with one selection period per year.
CCRP Targets Small Acreages
CCRP is similar to CRP in that it involves 10 to 15-year contracts, but it is limited to certain practices in cropland and is intended for small acreages, not entire fields. Eligible cropland must have been planted two of the last five years; the land must be physically and legally capable of being planted in a normal manner, or may be land in the last year of a CRP contract.
The CCRP practices likely to be the most common here are waterways, filter strips, windbreaks and other buffers. Grassed waterways are strips of grass seeded within cropland where water tends to concentrate or flow off a field, and are used primarily to prevent erosion. Filter strips are strips of grass and riparian buffers are plantings of trees, shrubs and grasses; both are used to trap sediment, fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollutants before they reach streams and lakes.
Both EQIP and CCRP are administered by the Farm Services Agency, with NRCS providing the technical work. For more information, contact the FSA (354-2391) or NRCS (1-800-962-9369). For signup, call the FSA office for an appointment, and expect delays due to both agencies’ current load with other programs.