CSP rewards conservation on working lands

Agri News

Thursday, May 27, 2010
http://www.agrinews.com/csp/rewards/conservation/on/working/lands/story-2604.html

CSP rewards conservation on working lands

By Janet Kubat Willette
Agri News staff writer
jkubat@agrinews.com

LE SUEUR, Minn. — Tom Nuessmeier will extend his crop rotation and implement Integrated Pest Management as part of his Conservation Stewardship Program contract.

Nuessmeier, who farms with his brother, Tim, and his parents, Carl and Elaine, in Le Sueur County, signed a contract with the federal government in January. The contract runs until 2014.

Over those five years, the Nuessmeiers will receive a total of $30,500 or about $6,000 per year. The payments will vary from year-to-year based on the implementation of the resource conserving cover crop practice.

"That's a good amount," Nuessmeier said. It's society paying farmers for taking care of the land, water and air and to provide wildlife habitat.

"I think it's a good program," he said. "I think it's a good working lands conservation program. It's conservation on the ground that you're farming."

The Nuessmeiers expressed interest in enrolling in the Conservation Stewardship Program during the pilot signup last fall. They had previously looked at the Conservation Security Program, but it was never offered in their watershed.

Unlike the Conservation Security Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program is available on a nationwide basis with a continuous signup. There are annual ranking periods. The next ranking period ends June 11.

Applications submitted after June 11 will be held over until next year, said Paul Flynn, Minnesota Natural Resources Conservation Service state resource conservationist.

During the pilot signup, 1,600 eligible applications were submitted, Flynn said. A total of 909 contracts for 467,000 acres of pastureland and cropland were accepted in Minnesota. An additional 57,000 acres of forestland were accepted.

About 250 applications submitted during the pilot signup weren't accepted and will be considered in this ranking period, along with any applications received since and up to June 11.

Applications compete within five pooling regions in the state, Flynn said, and the state has an allocation of acres based upon the number of privately owned acres in Minnesota. The allocation is 300,000 acres of crop and pasture land and 20,000 acres of forestland. In the pilot signup, Minnesota received additional acres because other states didn't use their entire allocation.

"I think in general farmers want to be good stewards of what they're farming," Nuessmeier said.

He plans to meet with the Le Sueur County NRCS district conservationist soon to go over his IPM booklet. He's also started to extend his three-year crop rotation to a four-year rotation.

Nuessmeier said the CSP seems to have real, measurable outcomes, with auditing performed by county NRCS office staff. He's glad he's able to farm the land and at the same time preserve and improve it.

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