Natural Resources Conservation Service
Enrollment for revamped green-payment program opens in a week
The USDA will open a three-month enrollment period on Nov. 14 for the Conservation Stewardship Program, which pays farmers and ranchers for making soil, water and wildlife conservation a part of their daily operations. A small-farm group says producers should submit an initial application if they're interested in the program, but it says USDA has yet to fully describe its changes to CSP.
How a ‘surgical’ CRP could reduce nutrient runoff
A former high-ranking USDA official, Bruce I. Knight, argues in an opinion piece on Agri-Pulse that the conservation reserve program should focus on "environmentally sensitive acreage" rather than placing high-quality croplands under CRP contracts. "When we use CRP in the conservation portfolio of tools we should use it surgically and strategically to trap and treat nutrient runoff or to provide specific habitat benefits rather than large-scale whole field enrollments," he writes.
Storms dampen dry California, weather turns “more typical”
A rainy December is putting water into California's depleted reservoirs and snowpack on the Sierra Nevada, says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Toledo mayor asks federal action to prevent algae blooms
The government should give priority to protecting water quality in Lake Erie's watershed including a standard on blooms of toxic algae, said Toledo Mayor Michael Collins, four months after explosive growth of algae shut down his city's water supply. "If we continue to delay, the harm may be irreparable," Collins said during a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on voluntary work by farmers to control soil erosion and protect water purity.
USDA earmarks $2 million to improve Lake Erie water quality
Farmers in Ohio can get up to $2 million in cost-share money to reduce run-off into Lake Erie, said USDA, acting only weeks after algae blooms in the lake disrupted the water supply for Toledo.
USDA offers $3 mln for honeybee habitat
The Natural Resources Conservation Service says it "will provide close to $3 million in technical and financial assistance for interested farmers and ranchers to help improve the health of bees, which play an...