|
CANTON, Minnesota, November 4, 2004: Overlooking a backdrop
of productive pastures and cropland on the Dan and Cara
Miller farm in the Root River watershed of southeast
Minnesota, Natural Resources Conservation Service Associate
Chief Merlin Bartz will announce the nation’s
approved watershed list for the 2005 Conservation Security
Program on November 5, 2004.
Expanding from the 2004 sign-up when only 18 watersheds
were eligible, the 2005 sign-up will be coming to 202
watersheds, about ten percent of the nation’s
watersheds. In Minnesota, the Redeye, Red Lake, Redwood,
Sauk and Root River watersheds were chosen based on
land use criteria that will enable many more farmers
to enroll. Visit the NCRS website at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/csp
for the complete list of eligible watersheds.
“The criteria used to pick the 2005 watersheds,
such as diversity in the landscape, the recent history
of producers utilizing state and federal conservation
cost share programs, and areas of low soil erosion rates
relative to potential soil erosion, are evident in the
management practices of the producers in these watersheds,”
said Tim Gieseke, Agriculture and Environmental Policy
Specialist at the Minnesota Project. “Since the
Conservation Security Program is not yet being administered
as a nation-wide conservation program open to all farmers,
as passed into law by Congress, it is imperative that
watersheds with excellent conservation farming and high
eligibility are included in the limited signup.”
The Root River watershed, for example, has many farms
with crop rotations, managed livestock grazing, grass
buffers along creeks and sinkholes, contour strip farming,
and other practices that maximize clean water and wildlife
habitat. Now more farmers will receive the financial
assistance they need to improve their practices.
The NRCS State Technical Committee, an open forum in
which suggestions and ideas are brought forward to the
NRCS State Conservationist Bill Hunt, developed these
criteria for watershed selection.
The 2004 sign-up was considered a pilot program in
which farmers in just 18 watersheds nation-wide were
eligible to apply. Many recommendations were made at
the local and national level prior to the expansion
of watersheds for 2005. In addition, NRCS is now considering
an unprecedented outpouring of some 12,000 public comments
on their proposed rules for the program, comments aimed
at making the Conservation Security Program the centerpiece
of conservation policy.
“We are making progress,” said Mike McGrath,
Agriculture Policy Specialist with the Minnesota Project.
“We had a successful 2004 signup with the pilot
program, and now the 2005 signup is on track to becoming
a successful working demonstration of how this new approach
to farm policy will pay farmers significant financial
rewards for providing top-notch care of the land, water,
and air. We expect to see broad-based support from this
Administration to develop the Conservation Security
Program into the nationwide conservation program that
Congress intended.”
|
