Farmers and Landowners have an opportunity to enroll in a 30 year Conservation Reserve Program contract under the USDA’s Farm Service Agency’s pilot program CLEAR30. Those with waterways, filter strips, and repairing buffers are eligible to enroll if they expire September 30th of this year. District Conservationist Cathy Froelich has more:
“A participant can offer all or a portion of the expiring acres. The maximum payment will be $300 per acre. The rental rate is going to be determined how they always have been, the top three soils. Each has an established dollar amount to it. There is no cost share because you are enrolling already established practices, but those practices must meet standard of inspect. If a waterway 10 years ago was supposed to be 30 feet wide and it’s only 20, you have to get it out to 30. If there are trees growing up in the filter strips, you need to get them out. You have to be able to enroll what already meets standards,” Froelich says.
For more information about open enrollment until August 21st, contact the Monmouth FSA office at 734-9308 ext. 2.
