Organic producers share CSP plans
By Heather Thorstensen
hthorstensen@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 04/01/2010 9:13 AM
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LA CROSSE, Wis. — Three organic producers spoke Feb. 26 at the Organic Farming Conference about their experiences with signing up for the Conservation Stewardship Program. The second ranking period is currently open and there is continuous sign up.
CSP is voluntary and administered by USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. It's available to agricultural and forestry producers who agree to take on additional conservation practices or improve or maintain the conservation efforts they already do.Producers must be addressing one of the program's resource concerns to join and agree to address at least one more by the end of a five-year contract. In return, they get annual payments. A second payment is made to those who use a resource-conserving cover crop.
Tom Nuessmeier of Nuessmeier Brothers in St. Peter, Minn., estimates his payment will be approximately $30,000 over five years. He signed up and is in the final review process. In general, he's happy with CSP and sees it as an effort to get farms closer to no-till or to increase diversity.
He figures 66 percent of his payment is for existing conservation practices and about 34 percent is for new work. He'll identify pests on his fields and write a management strategy for them. He'll also expand his crop rotation to four years by adding winter grain for CSP's second payment.
Signing up took about eight hours of researching the program, hosting farm visits and going to the NRCS office. It's important to carefully consider the conservation practices you're signing up for, he said, due to the five-year contract.
Paul Mugge of Sutherland, Iowa, hasn't signed a contract yet but thinks he made the cut from the first ranking period. He expects it would give him $27.14 per acre per year for his 291-acre farm, a payment of approximately $40,000 over five years.
Agricultural CSP applications are ranked on a Conservation Measurement Tool. It assesses how a farm addresses eight resource concerns: Plants, energy, water quantity, air quality, soil quality, soil erosion, water quality and animals, which can include livestock or wildlife. Each state chooses how to administer CSP and applications are ranked against others in their area and in their particular resource categories. Iowa has selected the last four categories as priority resource concerns. Minnesota is divided into five pooling areas, each with their own priorities.
Mugge already addresses all eight concerns. That made signing up for the program an easy decision because it could reward him for things he's already doing.
He thinks his many existing practices, such as windbreaks and reconstructed prairie for wildlife habitat, contributed to the number of points he received during the ranking process. The points are used to determine his payment.
He noted it's important to have a good relationship with local NRCS staff. He's still working out some details with them.
"Some of this stuff is mysterious yet. My NRCS guy didn't even know," Mugge said.
Jeff Klinge of Home Farm Organics in Farmersburg, Iowa, wants to see CSP go on, but said some problems need to be addressed.
"This program pays better for new practices," he said.
What constitutes a "new" practice has been a point of contention for Klinge. In 2009, he took soybeans out of his crop rotation because his land is highly erodible and he thought it would help reduce erosion. But he learned he would have been paid 80 cents more per acre if he kept soybeans. He said the assessment tool is flawed because there was no category for his conservation effort, and it likes four crops in a rotation instead of three. He estimates his yearly payment will be $25.54 per acre.
He also said not many graziers in Minnesota and Wisconsin received CSP contracts because the program looks for a certain amount of ground cover, but farm visits were done in November, after livestock had mowed pastures.
"The time of field visits is another flaw," Klinge said. "...When you talk to legislators, please point this out."
Paul Flynn, Minnesota NRCS state resource conservationist, said producers must put their entire operation in CSP, so there is no specific category for graziers. Of the 1,685 applications in Minnesota in 2009, somewhere between 800 to 825 farms will be awarded contracts. People who ranked highest and scored the best had field checks. Some were done in December, when it had already snowed, and some were delayed until recently.
"You don't have to meet every resource concern to be eligible. Certainly, there are a lot of folks that have grazing land that may not meet the grazing land concern but are offered contracts," Flynn said.
Traci Bruckner of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb., moderated the panel and noted in the 2009 application period that grassland is paid three cents per point while cropland receives six cents, even though grassland on highly erodible areas is a conservation practice.
"It needs a lot of work," Klinge said.