Idaho agricultural producers and landowners interested in protecting or improving natural resources on their land may benefit from a visit to their local USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) office. Applications for several Farm Bill programs are due by February 12 to qualify for conservation financial assistance in 2010.

 Clint Evans talks about the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) which helps agricultural producers improve resource conservation on their operations: “The environmental quality incentives program we’re asking how can it benefit an Ag producer, and it basically allows us to provide financial assistance to develop conservation practices on the land that can help them improve their grazing systems, enhance location of watering facilities, improve grazing distribution, things like that on graze lands, on crop lands. We can help them with things like higher intensity levels of nutrient management and pest management on their crop lands as well as improved irrigation water management. Especially here in the western United States where we’re highly dependent on that irrigation water on a lot of our croplands here in the state of Idaho.”

 If you’re interested, make sure you contact your NRCS office. Deadline: February 12^th. David Sparks, AgInfo.net.