The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Alabama (NRCS-AL) wants to remind landowners and agricultural producers the initial Fiscal Year 2025 financial assistance programs signup deadline is Friday, November 1, 2024.
The applicable programs include the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), also (EQIP) Conservation Incentive Contracts (CIC) and the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).
CSP helps agricultural producers maintain and improve their existing conservation systems and adopt additional conservation activities to address priority resources concerns. Participants earn CSP payments for conservation performance, the higher the performance, the higher the payment.
EQIP provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers to address natural resource concerns and deliver environmental benefits such as improved water and air quality, conserved ground and surface water, increased soil health and reduced soil erosion and sedimentation, improved or created wildlife habitat, and mitigation against increasing weather volatility. Initiatives include Animal Mortality, Climate Smart Ag, Conservation Activities, Feral Swine, Eastern Hellbender, High Tunnel, Irrigation, Longleaf Pine, New and Beginning Farmers, National Water Quality Initiative, On Farm Energy, Organic, Shortleaf, Small-Scale-Urban Ag, Socially Disadvantaged Farmers, Strikeforce, Water Quality, White Oak, and Working Lands for Wildlife – Bobwhite Quail and Gopher Tortoise.
EQIP-CIC provides financial assistance to address priority resource concerns, including sequestering carbon and improving soil health in high-priority areas. Through these contracts, NRCS works with producers to strengthen the quality and condition of natural resources on their operations using management practices that target resource concerns including degraded soil condition and soil erosion. The focus within Alabama for CIC is to increase the adoption of Cover Crops, Native Warm Season Grasses, Prescribed Grazing, and Residue and Tillage Management on Cropland and Pasture. Conservation Incentive Contracts last five years.
RCPP promotes coordination of NRCS conservation activities with partners that offer value-added contributions to expand our collective ability to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns. Through RCPP, NRCS seeks to co-invest with partners to implement projects that demonstrate innovative solutions to conservation challenges and provide measurable improvements and outcomes tied to the resource concerns they seek to address. Two projects are available for Streambank Restorations and Longleaf Pine Restoration. Applications are accepted on a continuous basis but, selecting applications for funding is completed periodically through batching periods with specific cutoff dates.
And this first cutoff date is November 1, 2024. Applications received after this date will e held and considered for subsequent funding announcements as available funding permits.
For more information about any of these programs, visit NRCS at your local USDA Service Center.