09/29/05 USDA`s plan for CRP

Farm and Ranch September 29, 2005 Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced Wednesday how the USDA plans to handle the huge amount of acreage with Conservation Reserve Program contracts expiring in 2007 through 2010. He said re-enrollments will be offered for those contracts that provide the highest level of environmental benefit and extensions for the vast majority of other contracts. USDA will use a five tiered system based on the Environmental Benefits Index in effect at the time the expiring CRP contract was made. Johanns: "The top 20 percent of contracts providing the greatest environmental benefit will be eligible for a ten to fifteen year re-enrollment. The next 20 percent of contracts will be eligible for a five year extension. Then we'll offer four, three and two year extensions as we move down to the lower end of ratings for environmental benefits." As for what rental rates will apply, Deputy Under Secretary Floyd Gaibler said USDA has received input that in some areas CRP rental rates aren't competitive, in others they are too high. Gaibler: "So part of the process here we are going to update those rental rates to try and clear up those anomalies and then for the re-enrollments we will apply the updated rental rates and for the extensions we'll keep the current rate in place." Gaibler also said that areas with National Conservation Priority Areas will likely have more acres that fall in the re-enrollment versus the extension category. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.