R2008-87 AUTHORIZING AGREEMENT - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

{ . . Federal CRP allowed us to put lands that usually flooded into a filter strip or buffer strip for 10 or 15 years. During the 10 or 15 years the landowner must maintain the filter strip or buffer area in exchange for a yearly payment from the federal government. The payment is based on the soil type and what type of land cover the landowner chooses. The yearly payment in our county ranges anywhere from $120 - $190/acre for a filter strip or buffer area. The landowner also gets up to 50% cost-share to establish the practice plus additional incentives. The nice thing about this program is, if the landowner chooses they can enroll the property into the state conservation easements, called the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), which . allows them to extend there CRP contract an additional 15, 35 or permanent years. (Yes, the landowner can actually take the land out of production forever if they choose to, and get a one-time lump sum payment for that. The landowner will retain all rights to the property. In exchange the land will never return to farmland during the time of the easement.) The Finley Creek Watershed did not have any filter strips that were signed up for a permanent easement. We did, however, sign up several landowners for the federal 15-year program. Another federal program that we signed up several landowners in was the Conservation Reserve Program for waterways. This program allowed us to enter the land that needed a new waterway into the program. The majority of the landowners that came into our office qualified for this program. This program provides the landowner up to 50% cost-share plus incentives, and the landowner will receive a rental payment based on the soil type on a yearly basis for 15 years. When you run the math, the landowner is basically getting the majority of the waterway costs paid for by the government, which is the best deal that we can offer, if the landowner qualifies. � EQIP was a very popular federal program also, so far $70,831.00 dollars have . been allocated to be spend in the Finley Creek Watershed. Out of that amount $40,123.17 dollars have been actually implemented and the project is on the ground. For this report I will only refer to what has actually been implemented so far. The practices that farmers can sign up for are: Nutrient Management Plans (these encourage farmers to apply only those nutrients needed to grow a crop, so they do not run off into Lake Decatur),No-till and Strip-till ( farming methods that keep soil from running off farm fields), Rotational Grazing (grasses help reduce erosion and if managed correctly will help to protect Lake Decatur, plus the farmer must fence out livestock from the creek areas), Grassed Waterways (help reduce erosion by grassing down areas where water flows off the farm), and Structures (reduce gully erosion by healing the gully area). Because of the federal programs that are currently being offered, we did not use as much Finley Creek cost-share money as we predicted we would during the two years of the program.