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NRCS delays updated CSP rollout

The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) says enhancements to its Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) are going to be delayed.

Mark Rose, acting deputy chief of programs with NRCS, tells Brownfield the improvements and updates need further testing.

“We want to make sure that we have fully field-tested this thing (and) have our field staff trained, so they can talk with producers about this.  Those are the efforts that will be taking place once we get into January, February, March and throughout the summer.”

CSP is a working lands conservation program that provides farmers and ranchers who enter into five-year contracts with NRCS up to $40,000 dollars a year in funding to implement best management practices on their land.

Rose says one of the primary changes to CSP has to do with removing the Conservation Measurement Tool as called for by Congress in the 2014 Farm Bill.

“That gives us the opportunity to take a look at CSP as a whole and identify where we can make this more transparent for producers, more transparent for our field staff and more transparent for our partners that are helping us to implement the program out in the field.”

Rose says NRCS will roll out the fiscal year 2016 Conservation Stewardship Program the same as 2015, with the upgraded CSP implementation beginning in October of ’16 and complete by the 2017 sign-up period.