Despite lower rental rates, enrollment in the land-idling Conservation Reserve Program is “competitive” this year, a USDA official said at a House Agriculture subcommittee hearing on Tuesday.
The 2018 farm bill raised the cap on the number of acres to be enrolled in the CRP from 24 million to 27 million. The program sends an annual rental payment to farmers who take fragile lands out of crop production for 10 years or more. Signup for the program has been underway since December and will end February 28.
“The current signup certainly [is] competitive,” said Richard Fordyce, the USDA Farm Service Agency administrator. But he promised that there will be “more room” in the program than in prior years. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue predicted in December that this year will see the largest enrollment in CRP “in many years.” In part, this could be facilitated by the expiration of 5.4 million acres of CRP contracts in September.
This year’s CRP varies from prior iterations because of how rental payments are calculated. Previously, the payments were based on a county’s average land rental rates. But Congress reduced the payment to fund the expansion of the reserve, and payments are now calculated at 85 percent of local rates.
The lower rental rates have “farmers back home scratching their head,” said Rep. Mike Conaway at the hearing. “They’re getting some differences between neighboring counties. Obviously farmers talk to each other, and it creates a ruckus.”
USDA officials also provided updates at the hearing on the implementation of key farm bill provisions and programs. Matthew Lohr, the head of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, said that since last May three of four farm bill interim rules — for the Conservation Stewardship Program, Agricultural Conservation Easement Program, and Environmental Quality Incentives Program — have been published with a fourth on its way.
A livestream of the hearing is available here.