By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — In an effort to persuade more farmers and producers to join the federal Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), the state has put more paid staff on the job.
In February, Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA) Director Andy Miller reassigned 10 specialists within the Division of Soil Conservation to CREP. Division Director Tammy Lawson said it employs a total of 30 people as resource specialists, and prior to this reassignment, only four were working on CREP.
“It still has them out there doing technical work,” she said of the reassignment, which she explained isn’t really changing much of those 10 people’s existing duties. “It’s just more focused (on CREP). We just wanted to test the waters to see how rapidly we could implement the project.”
Indiana has only been involved in CREP for a couple of years, and only three of the state’s 30-plus watersheds – Tippecanoe River, Upper White River and Pigeon-Highland watersheds – are eligible for federal dollars right now.
Lawson said prior to the current state administration and establishment of ISDA in 2005, Indiana didn’t allocate much in its budget for conservation.
“Indiana conservation programs are maturing, finally,” she said, adding, “well – we’re getting in the game.”
The purpose of CREP is to encourage landowners to set aside tracts of cropland within watersheds for non-farming, to improve soil, water supply and wildlife habitat. Money is paid as incentive for not using the land and also for active practices such as vegetation protection and forested buffers.
Contracts are for 14-15 years, similar to the Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) broader-based Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), also designed to improve ecologically-fragile lands.
“CREP is just a gravy layer on top of CRP,” Lawson explained. The state offers financial incentive to enrolled landowners, on top of federal payments. Indiana had set aside $3.6 million of tax money and private contributions for a six-year period, but Lawson said because ISDA will have to negotiate a new agreement with FSA under the 2007 farm bill, ISDA is trying to get as many enrollees as possible before the end of this year.
So far, ISDA has signed up about 400 eligible landowners with 2,500 acres, but its goal is 7,000 acres – hence, why half of Lawson’s division is now assigned to CREP.
To learn more about enrollment, visit www.in.gov/isda/soil or call 317-232-8770.
This farm news was published in the April 4, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
