When Alice Chandler took 64 acres of her Crousville potato farm out of production in 2008 by enrolling in the federal Conservation Reserve Program, she did it with thought for the land and potential feathered residents.
“It was land we were no longer going to farm,” Chandler said. “Rather than keep renting it [to another farmer] we decided to put that segment of ground into the conservation program. We were told it could be a sanctuary for upland sandpipers.”
Signed into law in 1985 by then-President Ronald Reagan, the Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, was designed to take environmentally sensitive land out of agriculture production by planting species that promoted water quality, prevented soil erosion and reduced loss of wildlife habitat.
In return, the landowner would receive an annual rental payment from the federal government on that acreage.
At its height in Maine in the late 1980s and early 1990s, nearly 20,000 acres of land were enrolled in CRP in 10- to 15-year contracts, mostly in Aroostook County, according to Donovan Todd, state executive director for the federal Farm Services Agency, the administrators of CRP.
Today, Todd said, there are 7,986 Maine acres in CRP.
Participation in the program is competitive, Todd said, and the U.S. secretary of agriculture sets state-by-state limits on how much land nationwide can be in the program at any one time.
“Right now that is now 25 million acres for the entire country,” Todd said. “But we have lost [eligible acres] in Maine, and a lot of that acreage has moved west.”
Trends in land value have also impacted CRP participation in Maine, according to Amanda May, agriculture program specialist with Maine’s Farm Service Agency office.
“Agricultural land is becoming more valuable,” she said. “So there is less incentive to tie it up in a 10- or 15-year contract.”
In Maine, Todd said, despite the drop in acreage, the program has succeeded with its primary goal of agricultural preservation.
“We’ve lost a lot of CRP acres over the years,” Todd said. “But the program did succeed in what it was supposed to do: It preserved cropland for future generations.”
Thanks to CRP, Todd said, the land that was in the program is not only available to current and future farmers, it’s a lot healthier after laying fallow for 10 to 15 years, the life of the average CRP contract.
So healthy, in fact, that Todd said every acre that comes out of CRP is ripe for organic farming.
“These are acres that have been out of production for years,” he said. “They have not been treated with chemicals, so are ready to be certified for organic crops.”
Having that land in CRP does make the transition easier when moving into an organic producing system, according to Ted Quaday, executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, as it is usually seeded with longer term cover crops that can leave the soil with better organic matter content.
But, he also said all land must be looked at based on its own merits.
“But transitioning to organic is not always the best option,” Quaday said. “Often, CRP land is marginal in some way, maybe too wet or maybe very close to a riparian zone. It is really up to individual farmers who are looking at the organic system and trying to determine how to best work the land at their disposal.”
Given that the average price paid per acre on CRP land is around $50, according to his agency’s numbers, Todd said no one in Maine is getting rich off the program. Nationally, the per-acre average is $57.
“But it is doing a lot of good on a lot of things,” he said. “It’s encouraging the farmers to preserve the environment and help wildlife and helping ground nesting birds by keeping land in grass.”
On her Crousville acres, Chandler has noticed a difference.
“This is the first year we have seen so many of those little sandpipers,” she said. “There are just all kinds of babies scurrying around.”
For Chandler, that and the fact that CRP allows the land to generate a small income have made the program a good fit for her.
Landowners may apply to participate in CRP during periodic general signup periods announced by the U.S. secretary of agriculture.
They may also enroll through a state’s Farm Services Agency office in the CRP’s more limited “continuous sign up program,” which targets smaller tracts of land with specific quality issues and provides physical solutions, according to Amanda May,
To be eligible for CRP, according to Todd, the land had to have been in agricultural production four years before enrolling.
Participating landowners must follow some minimum stewardship on the CRP land.
“We work with the landowner to provide the best maintenance plans and resources for that land we are trying to protect,” May said. “The [CRP] rental payments are an incentive for the landowner to follow that plan.”
