Continuous sign-up under the Conservation Reserve Program is now open in Iowa and runs through mid-August.
Greg Reisdorff, with the Farm Service Agency, says they’ve restarted the popular program after putting it on hold.
“Currently, there’s 22.7-million acres enrolled in CRP and the cap under the last Farm Bill is 24-million acres,” Reisdorff says, “so, we’re going to take some more sign-up right now.”
He says CRP has always been a popular program, moreso now.
“I think it has something to do with the commodity prices but there’s just a lot of interest right now,” Reisdorff says. “We’ve got people asking all the time about enrolling in CRP. I expect there’ll be a lot of interest when people start making some appointments to come in.”
Reisdorff says the deadline for continuous CRP sign up is tied to the Farm Bill, which is set to expire this fall on September 30th.
“They want to make sure all of the offers we get, we get them processed, we get them accepted and we get them approved before the end of September,” Reisdorff says. “The deadline for producers to sign an offer is August 17th. Then, we have to get conservation planning done by NRCS and get the contracts approved.”
Reisdorff says for any CRP contract that’s expiring this fall and is less than 15 years, enrollees can apply for a one-year extension.
For more information, contact your local county Farm Service Agency office.
By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton