Latest CRP
Sign-Up is a Victory for Pheasants
76% of all CRP
Bids Accepted
St. Paul,
Minn. –
Pheasants Forever (PF) reports
that the pheasant range faired extremely well during the 29th
general Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) sign-up. In
fact, roughly two-thirds of the 1.18 million new acres
accepted are from the northern tier of states spanning from
California to New York. Overall, 76% of the 1.6 million
acres offered were accepted.
Kansas
landowners offered the most acres and were rewarded with
239,950 new acres in CRP and an acceptance rate of over
90%. Other highlights included; Montana’s addition of
105,295 acres, Nebraska’s 64,692 acres, Iowa’s 61,134 acres,
Minnesota’s 33,207 acres, and South Dakota’s 30,157 acres.
Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska also all had acceptance rates
of over 80%.
“No other
program benefits pheasants like CRP,” explains Howard
Vincent, PF president and CEO. “Pheasants need habitat.
Simply put, CRP lands make tremendous pheasant habitat. We
applaud the USDA’s high acceptance rate and see this as a
positive step toward fulfilling President Bush’s promise of
a fully-enrolled program and continuing CRP’s wildlife
legacy.”
During a
visit to a Minnesota family farm earlier this year,
President Bush announced that CRP would continue into the
future and that the USDA would reach a fully-enrolled CRP of
39.2 million acres nationwide. With this latest sign-up,
the program now has 35.6 million acres enrolled. A large
portion of the remaining 3.6 million acres are reserved for
specific CRP initiatives that include farmable wetlands,
bobwhite quail buffers, and the Conservation Reserve
Enhancement Program (CREP). Ohio’s recently announced
70,000-acre Scioto River Watershed CREP is the newest
addition to those targeted CRP initiatives.
“CRP is a
great conservation program for pheasants, but it’s also a
great program for America as a whole,” adds Vincent.
“America’s farmers, ranchers, and landowners have taken
nearly 40 million acres of the nation’s most environmentally
sensitive lands out of production. Sure these lands benefit
pheasants, but these lands are now also protecting our soils
from erosion, protecting the integrity of our water quality,
and creating wildlife habitat for a myriad of plant and
animal species. Today, we saw once again that there is
tremendous support and demand for CRP amongst our nation’s
farmers and landowners. This is a program with room for
growth ahead.”
Originally established in 1985, CRP offers annual payments
for 10-15 year contracts to participants who establish
grass, shrub, and/or tree cover on environmentally sensitive
lands. Not only have these CRP lands been shown to improve
water quality, protect environmentally sensitive soils from
erosion, and provide critical wildlife habitat, but CRP also
helps stabilize farmer’s incomes through the annual
payments. In addition, CRP lands contribute at least $4.7
billion annually from hunting expenditures; much of which
benefits rural communities. CRP is a part of the federal
farm bill.
PF is a
non-profit conservation organization dedicated to the
protection and enhancement of pheasant and other wildlife
populations in North America through habitat improvement,
land management, public awareness, and education. Such
efforts benefit landowners and wildlife alike. There are
more than 108,000 PF members in over 600 local chapters
across the United States and Canada.
