USDA offers conservation funds to farmers

The U.S. Depart­ment of Agriculture’s (USDA) Nat­ural Resources Con­ser­va­tion Ser­vice (NRCS) is accept­ing appli­ca­tions to help pro­duc­ers improve water and air qual­ity, build health­ier soil, improve graz­ing and for­est lands, con­serve energy, enhance organic oper­a­tions, and achieve other envi­ron­men­tal benefits.

NRCS has directed over $13 mil­lion in finan­cial assis­tance for fis­cal 2013 to help Ohio pro­duc­ers imple­ment con­ser­va­tion prac­tices through the Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­ity Incen­tives Pro­gram (EQIP), the agency’s largest Farm Bill con­ser­va­tion pro­gram. Inter­ested pro­duc­ers should visit their local NRCS ser­vice cen­ter for infor­ma­tion on EQIP sign-up periods.

“The Envi­ron­men­tal Qual­ity Incen­tives Pro­gram offers farm­ers and forest­land man­agers a vari­ety of options to con­serve nat­ural resources while boost­ing pro­duc­tion on their lands,” State Con­ser­va­tion­ist Terry Cosby said. “This $13 mil­lion con­ser­va­tion invest­ment helps improve envi­ron­men­tal health and the econ­omy of Ohio’s rural communities.”

EQIP pro­vides finan­cial assis­tance for a vari­ety of con­ser­va­tion activ­i­ties, such as nutri­ent man­age­ment, reduced tillage, field buffers, rota­tional graz­ing sys­tems and much more. The dead­line for the next signup period in Ohio is Jan. 18. A sec­ond sign-up dead­line will occur on Feb. 15, if fund­ing is available.

Addi­tion­ally, NRCS offers spe­cial ini­tia­tives through EQIP, including:

On-Farm Energy Ini­tia­tive: helps pro­duc­ers con­serve energy on their oper­a­tions. Sea­sonal High Tun­nel Ini­tia­tive: helps pro­duc­ers install high tun­nels designed to extend the grow­ing sea­son into the cold months, increase pro­duc­tiv­ity, keep plants at a steady tem­per­a­ture and con­serve water and energy.

Organic Ini­tia­tive: helps pro­duc­ers to install con­ser­va­tion prac­tices on cer­ti­fied organic oper­a­tions or those work­ing toward organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Air Qual­ity Ini­tia­tive: helps pro­duc­ers address air qual­ity con­cerns through estab­lish­ing con­ser­va­tion prac­tices such as cover crops, wind­breaks, nutri­ent man­age­ment and other con­ser­va­tion mea­sures that mit­i­gate and pre­vent air qual­ity problems.

To par­tic­i­pate in EQIP, an appli­cant must be an indi­vid­ual, entity or joint oper­a­tion that meets EQIP eli­gi­bil­ity cri­te­ria. Appli­cants can sign up at their local NRCS ser­vice center.

For more infor­ma­tion about EQIP or other tech­ni­cal or finan­cial assis­tance pro­grams offered by NRCS, please con­tact your local ser­vice cen­ter: NRCS Adams County Ser­vice Cen­ter at (937) 544‑2033 or http://offices.sc.egov.usda.gov/locator/app?agency=nrcs.

Posted by Tina Murdock on Jan 10 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.