The Agricultural Management Assistance (AMA) helps agricultural producers manage financial risk through diversification, marketing or natural resource conservation practices. NRCS administers the conservation provisions while Agricultural Marketing Service and Risk Management Agency implement the production diversification and marketing provisions.

How It Works

Producers may construct or improve water management structures or irrigation structures; plant trees for windbreaks or to improve water quality; and mitigate risk through production diversification or resource conservation practices, including soil erosion control, integrated pest management, or transition to organic farming.

AMA is available in 16 states where participation in the Federal Crop Insurance Program is historically low: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

Program At A Glance

• AMA provides financial assistance up to 75 percent of the cost of installing conservation practices.
• Total AMA payments shall not exceed $50,000 per participant for any fiscal year.
• Participants are not subject to Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985.
• Participants are subject to Adjusted Gross Income provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985.
• AMA offers an additional higher cost-share for historically underserved producers.

Who Is Eligible

Producers must:

•  Be engaged in livestock or agricultural production.
• Have an interest in the farming operation associated with the land being offered for AMA enrollment.
• Have control of the land for the term of the proposed contract.
• Be in compliance with the provisions for protecting the interests of tenants and sharecroppers, including the provisions for sharing AMA payments on a fair and equitable basis.
• Be within appropriate payment limitation requirements.

Land Eligibility

• Land on which agricultural commodities or livestock are produced, such as cropland, hayland, pastureland, rangeland, and grassland.
• Land used for subsistence purposes, private non-industrial forestland, or other land on which agricultural products, livestock, or forest-related goods are produced.
• Land on which risk may be mitigated through operation diversification or change in resource conservation practices.

CSP is an NRCS program that helps agricultural producers, including non-industrial private forest landowners, expand and enhance their conservation activities through a 5 year contract. It provides a payment (minimum $1500/year) for maintaining current conservation efforts, while simultaneously implementing new conservation activities. At least one new activity is required to participate in the program.

From the NRCS website: “Whether you are looking to improve grazing conditions, increase crop yields, or develop wildlife habitat, we can custom design a CSP plan to help you meet those goals. We can help you schedule timely planting of cover crops, develop a grazing plan that will improve your forage base, implement no-till to reduce erosion or manage forested areas in a way that benefits wildlife habitat.  If you are already taking steps to improve the condition of the land, chances are CSP can help you find new ways to meet your goals.

If you decide to enroll in CSP, the local NRCS conservation planner will have a one-on-one consultation with you to evaluate your current management system and the natural resources on your land. Then the NRCS conservation planner will present a variety of CSP enhancement alternatives for you to consider implementing on your land, based on existing conservation practices… These improvements work naturally with your land to bring out your land’s best potential.”

CSP is available to all producers, regardless of operation size or type of crops produced!!

For more information, visit the CSP website here

The following information is taken directly from the NRCS website. Click here to visit their site.

Your Stewardship Goals. Our Assistance.

Have you ever looked across your property and thought about some land management goals you would like to take to the next level? Maybe we can help.

No one knows more about your land than you do, and no one knows more about conservation than we do. Together we can develop a plan tailored to your land and your goals to help you increase productivity and protect the value of your land.       

Our Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) helps you build on your existing conservation efforts while strengthening your operation.  Whether you are looking to improve grazing conditions, increase crop yields, or develop wildlife habitat, we can custom design a CSP plan to help you meet those goals. We can help you schedule timely planting of cover crops, develop a grazing plan that will improve your forage base, implement no-till to reduce erosion or manage forested areas in a way that benefits wildlife habitat.  If you are already taking steps to improve the condition of the land, chances are CSP can help you find new ways to meet your goals.

Sustainable Production

CSP is for working lands. It is the largest conservation program in the United States with 70 million acres of productive agricultural and forest land enrolled in CSP. Thousands of people that have made the choice to voluntarily enroll in the program because it helps them enhance natural resources and improve their business operation.       

CSP participants are seeing real results.  Some of these benefits include:

• Improved cattle gains per acre
• Increased crop yields
• Decreased inputs
• Wildlife population improvements
• Better resilience to weather extremes       

Through CSP, we can help you build your business while implementing conservation practices that help ensure the sustainability of your entire operation. Good land stewardship not only conserves the natural resources on your farm, ranch or forest, it also provides multiple benefits to local communities, including better water and air quality and wildlife habitat, as well as food and fiber.

How does CSP Work?

If you decide to enroll in CSP, the local NRCS conservation planner will have a one-on-one consultation with you to evaluate your current management system and the natural resources on your land. Then the NRCS conservation planner will present a variety of CSP enhancement alternatives for you to consider implementing on your land, based on existing conservation practices. The variety of CSP conservation activities that are offered give you a lot of freedom to select enhancements or practices that help you meet your management goals. These improvements work naturally with your land to bring out your land’s best potential.

CSP Conservation Activities

Applicants must schedule, install and adopt at least one new conservation activity (conservation practices, enhancements, or bundles) on the operation.   

Conservation practices must meet the criteria in the conservation practice standards and specifications available in the Field Office Technical Guide (FOTG).   

Enhancements are a conservation activity used to treat natural resource concerns and improve producer conservation performance.  Enhancement adoption results in environmental benefits that are equal to or greater than the performance level for the planning criteria identified for a given resource concern. 

Enhancement Bundles are specific enhancements whose installation as a group produce conservation performance improvement and address resource concerns in a more comprehensive and cost-effective manner.

Supplemental payment options exist for the implementation of resource-conserving crop rotation.  A resource-conserving crop rotation is a rotation that includes at least one resource-conserving crop that reduces erosion, improves soil fertility and tilth, interrupts pest cycles in applicable areas, reduces depletion of soil moisture or otherwise reduces the need for irrigation, and may provide protection and habitat for pollinators. 

Eligibility/Requirements

Applicant Eligibility – Applicants may include individuals, legal entities, joint operations or Indian Tribes. All CSP applications must meet the following eligibility requirements:

• Be listed as the operator in the USDA farm records management system for the operation being offered for enrollment.
• Document that they control the land for the term of the contract and include all eligible land in their entire operation in that contract.
• Comply with highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions and comply with Adjusted Gross Income provisions.
• Comply with tenants and sharecroppers provision.

​Land Eligibility – CSP is available to all producers, regardless of operation size or type of crops produced.  Eligible lands include private and Tribal agricultural lands (crop and pasture), nonindustrial private forest land (NIPF), associated agricultural land, and farmstead.  Producers must have effective control of the land for the term of the proposed contract.  Contracts must include all eligible land associated with the applicants agricultural or NIPF operation. 

Stewardship Threshold Eligibility – NRCS will use the Conservation Assessment Ranking Tool (CART) to determine whether or not the applicant is addressing resource concerns in order to meet the stewardship eligibility requirement.           

An applicant’s conservation activities must meet or exceed the stewardship threshold for the following:

• At least two resource concerns at the time of contract offer on all land uses.
• ​At least one additional resource concern by the end of the conservation stewardship contract on at least one land use.
• Renewal applicants must meet or exceed two additional PRCs or implement new or improve existing conservation activities to achieve higher levels of conservations performance for a minimum of two priority resource concerns met or exceeded in the initial contract.             

Applications for conservation practices and systems will be prioritized. High priority applications will be ranked. Applications that will result in greater environmental benefits for national, state, and/or local natural resource priorities will receive a higher score. Applications are selected for funding in ranking order. Additional restrictions and program requirements may apply.

Are you interesting in installing or implementing conservation practices on the land that you work on? You may be eligible to receive money and technical assistance through the USDA’s EQIP program.

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers to address natural resource concerns and deliver environmental benefits, such as improved water and air quality, conserved ground and surface water, reduced soil erosion and sedimentation, and improved or created wildlife habitat.

Under EQIP, farmers, ranchers, and other property managers may receive financial cost-share assistance and technical advice to conduct conservation practices such as: cover-crops, no-till, crop rotation, improved irrigation practices, seasonal high tunnels, establishing buffer zones, planting pollinator habitats, grazing and nutrient management, and more. The money from this program can cover planning, equipment, installation, maintenance, training, and labor.

Read more:

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

Natural Resources Conservation Service

The following information is taken directly from the NRCS website. Click here to visit their site.

How It Works

This voluntary conservation programs helps producers make conservation work for them.  Together, NRCS and producers invest in solutions that conserve natural resources for the future while also improving agricultural operations.

Through EQIP, NRCS provides agricultural producers and non-industrial forest managers with financial resources and one-on-one help to plan and implement improvements, or what NRCS calls conservation practices.  Using these practices can lead to cleaner water and air, healthier soil and better wildlife habitat, all while improving agricultural operations.  Through EQIP, you can voluntarily implement conservation practices, and NRCS co-invests in these practices with you.

Benefits

Some of these benefits include:

• Reduction of contamination from agricultural sources, such as animal feeding operations.
• Efficient utilization of nutrients, reducing input costs and reduction in nonpoint source pollution.
• Increased soil health to help mitigate against increasing weather volatility and improved drought resiliency.

The following information is taken directly from the NRCS website. Click here to visit their site.

The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) promotes coordination of NRCS conservation activities with partners that offer value-added contributions to expand our collective ability to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns. Through RCPP, NRCS seeks to co-invest with partners to implement projects that demonstrate innovative solutions to conservation challenges and provide measurable improvements and outcomes tied to the resource concerns they seek to address. 

The New RCPP

The 2018 Farm Bill made a number of substantial changes to RCPP:

• RCPP is now a standalone program with its own funding–$300 million annually. Moving forward, landowners and ag producers will enter into RCPP contracts and RCPP easements.
• Enhanced Alternative Funding Arrangement provision—NRCS may award up to 15 AFA projects, which are more grant-like and rely more on partner capacity to implement conservation activities.
• Three funding pools reduced to two—the National pool was eliminated. Partners must apply to either the Critical Conservation Area (CCA) or State/Multistate funding pool.
• Emphasis on project outcomes—all RCPP projects must now develop and report on their environmental outcomes.

Successful RCPP projects embody the following core principles:

• Impact—RCPP applications must propose effective and compelling solutions that address one or more natural resource priorities to help solve natural resource challenges. Partners are responsible for evaluating a project’s impact and results.
• Partner Contributions—Partners are responsible for identifying any combination of cash and in-kind value-added contributions to leverage NRCS’s RCPP investments. It is NRCS’s goal that partner contributions at least equal the NRCS investment in an RCPP project. Substantive partner contributions are given priority consideration as part of the RCPP application evaluation criteria.
• Innovation—NRCS seeks projects that integrate multiple conservation approaches, implement innovative conservation approaches or technologies, build new partnerships, and effectively take advantage of program flexibilities to deliver conservation solutions.
• Partnerships and Management—Partners must have experience, expertise, and capacity to manage the partnership and project, provide outreach to producers, and quantify the environmental outcomes of an RCPP project. RCPP ranking criteria give preference to applicants that meaningfully engage historically underserved farmers and ranchers.

Who is Eligible

Partner Eligibility

Eligible organizations interested in partnering with NRCS on conservation projects can develop applications for the RCPP competition. The lead partner for an RCPP project is the entity that submits an application, and if selected for an award is ultimately responsible for collaborating with NRCS to successfully complete an RCPP project.

See the RCPP funding announcement for details about what types of organizations are eligible to apply.

Producer and Landowner Eligibility

Once NRCS selects a project and executes an RCPP agreement with a lead partner, agricultural producers may participate in an RCPP project in one of two ways. First, producers may engage with project partners and delegate a willing partner to act as their representative in working with NRCS. Second, producers seeking to carry out conservation activities consistent with a RCPP project in the project’s geographic area can apply directly to NRCS.

Land Eligibility

RCPP projects must be carried out on agricultural or nonindustrial private forest land or associated land on which NRCS determines an eligible activity would help achieve conservation benefits (i.e., improved condition of natural resources resulting from implementation of conservation activities).

Eligible conservation activities may be implemented on public lands when those activities will benefit eligible lands as determined by NRCS and are included in the scope of an approved RCPP project.

RCPP Conservation Activities

RCPP projects may include a range of on-the-ground conservation activities implemented by farmers, ranchers and forest landowners. These activities include:

• Land management/land improvement/restoration practices
• Land rentals
• Entity-held easements
• United States-held easements
• Public works/watersheds

A single RCPP project application can propose to employ any combination of these eligible activity types as part of an RCPP project. For more details about eligible RCPP conservation activities, please see the RCPP funding announcement.

Success Stories

RCPP brings together a wide array of local and national partners, including Indian tribes, nonprofit organizations, state and local governments, private industry, conservation districts, water districts, universities and many others. So far, more than 2,000 partners are implemented by a diverse and capable partnership.

The most successful RCPP projects share four common characteristics–they innovate, leverage additional contributions, offer impactful solutions, and engage an active and effective partnership.

Read the RCPP Success stories and the latest Partner-Led Solutions publication.

How to Apply to RCPP

View the Latest Updates at the top of this page for funding opportunities. For information on how to apply, visit the How to Apply page.

If you are a producer or landowner interested in participating in an RCPP project, please contact your local USDA service center     .

RCPP Data, 2014 – Present

NRCS program results data are housed on the RCA Data Viewer.  RCPP data is available on the RCPP data page.

Report to Congress

NRCS is required to report on the progress of RCPP projects.

RCPP Congressional Report—December 2019 (PDF, 874KB)