Program Interim Rule

On Thursday, July 8, USDA issued an interim rule for the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP), which was established in the 2008 Farm Bill.  The Farm Bill authorizes $50 million in funding for the Program through FY 2012.  The basic goal of the program is to increase public access for wild-life dependent recreation on farm, ranch, and forestland whose owners and operators voluntarily make the land available for recreation.

The funding is available to State and Indian Tribal governments, which administer state or tribal programs to increase public recreational access, for projects that:

• Maximize participation by landowners and operators of privately-held farm, ranch and forest land;
• Ensure that land enrolled in the program has appropriate wildlife habitat;
• Provide incentives to strengthen wildlife habitat improvement efforts on Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) land, if available;
• Supplement funding and services from other federal, state, tribal government or private resources that is provided in the form of cash or in-kind services; and
• Provide information to the public about the location of public access land.

2010 Request for VPA-HIP Applications

USDA’s Farm Service Agency issued the first Request For Applications for the VPA_HIP on July 8, 2010.  Applications are due by August 23, 2010.   Application instructions and an application package may be downloaded through the VAP-HIP application webpage.  For this application period, a total of $16,667,000 is available for grant awards ranging from $75,000 to $2,000,000. There are no matching fund requirements.