News

Deadline is Friday for USDA land conservation grants

By Lightning Reports, Published: October 31, 2023

The deadline is Nov. 3 to apply for Environmental Quality Incentives Program grants that offer technical and financial assistance for working lands, including field crops, specialty crops, organic, confined livestock and grazing and non-industrial private forest land, USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service announced Tuesday.

Other deadlines are also rapidly approaching, including applications for the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

ACEP protects the agricultural viability and related conservation values of eligible land by limiting nonagricultural uses which negatively affect agricultural uses and conservation values, protect grazing uses and related conservation values by restoring or conserving eligible grazing land, and protecting and restoring and enhancing wetlands on eligible land. The deadline for FY24 funding for this program is Dec. 1. CSP is designed to compensate agricultural and forest producers who agree to increase their level of conservation by adopting additional conservation activities and maintaining their baseline level of conservation. The deadline for FY24 funding for this program is Jan. 12.

For more information, you can contact Joshua J. Hammond at 919-873-2103 or Joshua.Hammond@usda.gov.