Financial Support for Conservation Practices: EQIP and CSP

Agricultural conservation practices are widely accepted to benefit the environment, through improved soil health, water quality, air quality, biodiversity, and multiple other venues. However, the adoption of any conservation practice comes with a cost to the farmer. For example, planting cover crops requires incurring costs related to acquiring seeds, operating farm equipment, spending extra time managing the crop production system, and in some cases, extra costs to terminate the cover crop with additional herbicide prior to planting a cash crop. A wide menu of state and federal government programs as well as private programs provide technical and financial assistance to incentivize the implementation of conservation practices in agricultural working lands (Plastina and Sawadgo 2018). This report provides a simplified review of two major federal financial assistance programs, EQIP and CSP, for working cropland.

 

Prepared by Oranuch Wongpiyabovorn, economics graduate research assistant
Alejandro Plastina, extension economist, 515-294-6160, plastina@iastate.edu

Oranuch Wongpiyabovorn

economics graduate research assistant
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Alejandro Plastina

extension economist
515-294-6160
View more from this author