The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) will have its first general and continuous signup since 2015/2016, starting on December the 9th. Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Richard Fordyce and his team laid out the details of the sign-up period.
The 2018 Farm Bill increased the cap on CRP acres from 22 million to 27 million over the term of the Farm Bill. This round will increase the first step to 24.5 million acres. Fordyce says they are going to be preparing a lot of offers and enrolling many acres.
Brad Karman FSA Assistant Deputy Administrator for Farm Programs, talks about the number of acres available in the sign-up period. We could see upwards of seven million acres enrolled throughout the general, continuous, and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) signups.
Karman talks about how those seven million acres will be factored between programs.
Fordyce says through the CRP program, farmers have been able to protect sensitive lands for conservation, wildlife habitat, and tourism.
The sign-up period for CRP will run from December 9th, 2019 through February 28th, 2020.
