News

Nebraska farmers have new CRP option

Nebraska farmers have a new option to enroll low-lying acres, or so-called “farmed wetlands”, into the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP).

Greg Reisdorff with the Nebraska Farm Service Agency says the purpose is to increase habitat for migratory birds. He says FSA will accept up to ten-thousand acres in areas of the state known for playa wetlands.

“In a dry year, those wetlands are very productive—in a wet year, not so much,” Reisdorff says. “So this gives farmers an opportunity to lock in what they’re going to get on those areas that are difficult to farm in a wet year.”

Sutherland, Nebraska farmer Roric Paulman says he hopes to enroll some of his ground into the program.

“If we have a rain event that’s over about two inches, a lot of our ground will take that in an hour—the infiltration rates—but many of the lower-lying areas, the playas, will not,” Paulman says. “If we get a rain event of three or four (inches)—I don’t know if that’s common or if that’s the way it’s going to be—we would lose about three-and-a-half percent of our acreage to that rain event.”

Nebraska FSA will open enrollment for new CRP option in the coming weeks.

Link to news release on Nebraska Farm Bureau web site

AUDIO: Greg Reisdorff

 

AUDIO: Roric Paulman