Menu

Deadlines are approaching for farmers who have contracts under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program and Conservation Security Program.

Sept. 30 marks the deadline for implementing the practices agreed to under the current contracts for most of these programs, said Constance Jackson, OFBF vice president of agricultural ecology.

"If the practices are not implemented by the deadline, farmers may face having to return payments received under the contracts," Jackson said. "It's very important that farmers with these contracts who have not installed all of their practices contact their local NRCS office immediately."

Farmers should also be thinking ahead to the next year of funding, said Chris Coulon, a Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) public affairs specialist.

She said farmers, like most people, tend to put things off until they have to be done. And that means many wait to begin the application process for conservation funding.

To make the process smoother, Coulon said farmers should prepare their conservation plan ahead of time. The best time for them to develop their plan is in the fall or winter – after harvest and before NRCS becomes busy processing applications in the spring. To do that, farmers should visit their NRCS office and sit down with a conservation specialist.

"That's not a contract, that's just a plan," Coulon said. She explained the NRCS will use that plan as a base document for the application.

Producers interested in the Conservation Security Program, which rewards them for past conservation efforts, should also plan ahead. Coulon said by recording their production practices, farmers can be prepared when funding for their watershed is announced.

"If they have all that documentation together ahead of time, it's going to make that process a whole lot easier," she said.