From August 2-27th of this year, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) held a general signup for its Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).  On October 8, FSA released its report on the sign-up, which detailed the variety and distribution of acreage accepted into the program.  Read the full report here.

On September 14, Secretary Vilsack announced that more than 4.3 million acres were enrolled in the signup, and NSAC wrote about the preliminary results of the sign-up on our blog.

The report confirmed the enrollment of more than 4.34 million acres from over 45,000 offers, with Texas enrolling the highest acreage (858,437 acres), and Kansas receiving the most accepted offers (7,526).  The average rental payment across the nation was $46.08 per acre, and the total annual funding for the newly enrolled land across the nation was just over $200 million.

Producers can enroll in a subset of the CRP at any time under its “continuous signup” option, in which farmers enroll land to establish riparian buffers, grass waterways, contour grass strips, and other specific partial field conservation practices on land in agricultural production.  Under the “general” CRP signup, larger portions of land are enrolled for long-term conservation projects such as growing trees and grasses as cover.  Read more about CRP in our Grassroots Guide here.