By one yardstick — dollars spent under the 2018 farm bill — the cost-sharing Environmental Quality Incentives Program is the largest working lands conservation program at the USDA, said two University of Illinois economists on Thursday. They created an interactive map of EQIP spending that showed Texas and California were the leading states for outlays.
“In terms of performance by state, Texas has received the most in total EQIP funding at over $433.5 million (9 percent of the national total), followed by California at over $386 million (8 percent of the national total),” wrote Jonathan Coppess and Aleksi Knepp at the farmdoc daily blog. Mississippi was third with $183 million, followed by Georgia with $164 million and Arkansas with $151 million.
The interactive map captured $4.7 billion in spending. The 2018 farm bill ramped up EQIP funding to $2.025 billion this fiscal year from $1.75 billion in fiscal 2018. “With the Inflation Reduction Act, that funding authorization of $2.025 billion continues through FY2031,” said Coppess and Knepp. The climate, health, and tax law also awarded an additional $7.25 billion for EQIP with a priority on climate mitigation. EQIP was created in 1985 to assist producers in protecting soil, water, and wildlife habitat.
The interactive map of EQIP spending is available here.