Conservation Reserve Program

but it's really bad for our farmers, and it's also bad for those conservation programs when these things get stalled and they're not authorized.

So from a conservation standpoint, we have a really good, I think, improved version of CRP, the Conservation Reserve Program, which has higher payment limitations, and it restores the cost share for a sort of...

It's, this is all a little wonky, but, um...

And there's also a new forest conservation easement program, which we haven't had before.

Today's stories are about care that becomes stronger when it is shared.

Across working lands, wildlife habitat, libraries, parks, and everyday conversations, the USDA Farm Service Agency accepted 2.2 million acres through the 2026 Conservation Reserve Program.

The programme pays participating landowners to establish practices that protect soil, water and wildlife habitat.

One enrolment announcement cannot solve every environmental challenge, but it shows how policy can connect private land to a larger conservation network.

I don't talk, I wouldn't talk about cutting those subsidies or cutting the money off or anything.

Let's make sure we know where it's going, and could we use it as we did with Conservation Reserve Program-

Mm-hmm

... back in the...

Provisions that are included in the Farm Bill currently under consideration by the Senate Agricultural Committee.

Through Pheasants Forever's Upland Action Center, you can take direct action to urge your senators to advance a farm bill that strengthens the Conservation Reserve Program and other conservation programs.

To get started, head over to pheasantsforever.org and click on our advocacy page.

That'll do it this week reporting from PF&QF headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota.

And that, there was a spin-off project of that, which I feel like is the best agent-based model that I've developed to this day.

And that was on conservation reserve program.

Why was it

the most? USDA program.

You know, so for me, I, I, I had heard that we lived on Tallgrass Prairie, but I didn't really understand what that meant.

Um, and you know, during the '80s, uh, during the farm crisis, so much land went into CRP, uh, Conservation Reserve Program, and suddenly there were grasses, and it sort of dawned on me, like, oh, this is a little bit more like the original landscape.

And I say a little bit more, because actually in those days, what they planted was not native, uh, not native plants as, as they, uh, you know, tend to do more and more these days.

But it still made me think what was here, and it was only after I returned to the place after college that I thought, I found, you know, the name of Tallgrass, uh, Prairie species that were still around in roadside ditches.

I understand both sides.

But it's fascinating to me, the difference between Talk to me, are you guys part of some of the CRP and CREP programs?

Yes.

Okay, the Conservation Reserve Program and Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program.

The habitat that's good for them is good for so many other birds that are also, a lot of grassland birds that are also in sharp, steep decline.

We've lost huge numbers and the modern style of agriculture, which is much more large monoculture fields um is great for efficiency but not so great for a lot of wildlife species and so to be able to find those ways um to create that habitat and really find the areas that's um where you're maybe it's a toss-up um of on a dry year you'll be great um growing next to the water but on a wet year you're flooded out you actually lose money on their seed So to pick places like that, to pick that steep, sandy hill, which you don't like to drive the tractor on anyways, to turn those into wildlife habitat is great.

And the CRP, CREP program is really awesome because it actually will pay farmers to do that.

They get a rental payment every year on it.

big proponent of programs like that.

I mean, like we mentioned way at the top of the podcast, most of my farm is in the Conservation Reserve Program, which is another one of these pretty successful and effective farmland conservation programs.

And I mean, that money, it's not a huge amount of money.

CRP is not like a super lucrative program, but it allows us to maintain the land.