The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) will open signup this summer for CLEAR30, a new pilot program that offers farmers and landowners an opportunity to enroll in a 30-year Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contract. This pilot is available to farmers and landowners with expiring water-quality practice CRP contracts in the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay regions. Local NRCS District Conservationist Cathy Froelich has more:
“This is a thirty year contract. Most CRP is ten or fifteen year max, this is a thirty. Common practices in our three counties and probably surrounding counties, grass waterways, filter strips, and repairing buffers are probably the three top practices that we have going on that individuals are enrolled in that this could effect. Again, those are practices that will be expiring this September 30th. It is a thirty year rental payment. There is a rental rate enhancement of 27.5%. There is also a maintenance payment in there as well,” Froelich says.
The program signup period is July 6 to Aug. 21, 2020.
For more information, contact your local FSA office.
