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USDA Announces New Recreational, Fishing and Hunting Opportunities in Rural Areas
Enrollment of 2.8 Million Acres for Conservation Reserve Program Announced; 8 Additional States and one Tribe Approved for Voluntary Public Access Program.

USDA Forest Service

WASHINGTON, DC --(Ammoland.com)- Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced developments in two popular USDA programs that will support conservation of working lands for the benefit of wildlife, water quality, and recreation.

The Secretary announced that USDA will accept 2.8 million acres offered by landowners under the 41st Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) general sign-up.

The selections preserve and enhance environmentally sensitive lands while providing payments to property owners.

Additionally, USDA has approved eight additional states and one tribal government to participate in the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP), which encourages private landowners to provide public access to their lands for wildlife-dependant recreational opportunities, including fishing and hunting.

“USDA is committed to enhancing the great conservation legacy of our nation’s hunters and anglers to benefit current and future generations,” said Vilsack. “VPA-HIP and the CRP not only help achieve conservation goals, but also increase opportunities for hunting, fishing and other wildlife-dependant recreational activities by providing additional access to privately held lands. CRP assists private landowners and producers as they voluntarily protect their most environmentally sensitive lands.”

For this 41st general CRP sign-up, more than 38,000 offers were received on about 3.8 million acres nationwide. Enrollment of the 2.8 million acres will bring the total enrollment in the program to 29.9 million acres, leaving sufficient room under the 32-million-acre cap to continue enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, continuous sign-up and other CRP initiatives. The Secretary has asked FSA to continue to consider ways to use continuous enrollments to ensure CRP contains those lands that are most erodible, most valuable to wildlife or that otherwise ensure the program targets the most vulnerable acres.

Under CRP, farmers and ranchers plant grasses and trees in crop fields and along streams or rivers. The plantings reduce soil and prevent nutrients washing into waterways, reduce soil erosion that may otherwise contribute to poor air and water quality, and provide valuable habitat for wildlife. The CRP has restored more than two million acres of wetlands and associated buffers and reduced soil erosion by more than 400 million tons per year.

USDA selected offers for enrollment based on an Environmental Benefits Index (EBI) comprised of five environmental factors plus cost. The five environmental factors were: (1) wildlife enhancement, (2) water quality, (3) soil erosion, (4) enduring benefits and (5) air quality. The minimal acceptable EBI level for this sign-up was 221.

The average rental rate per acre for this sign-up is about $48. USDA implemented a number of measures including using additional EBI point incentives for producers to submit cost-effective offers and producer outreach activities to encourage competitive offers on the most environmentally sensitive lands. These measures will maintain the high environmental benefits while decreasing the historic cost of the program.

With today’s VPA-HIP announcement, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming join Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin as states participating in the program. Also participating are the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. The total amount of VPA-HIP funds to be obligated in 2011 is $17.8 million with $4.6 million of that total being allocated as part of today’s announcement.

The VPA-HIP program expands existing efforts or develops new initiatives to encourage owners and operators of privately held farm, ranch and forest land to voluntarily provide public access for the enjoyment of wildlife-dependent recreation, including hunting or fishing, in exchange for financial incentives or other assistance under programs implemented by state or tribal governments. VPA-HIP is a competitive grants program that is only available to state and tribal governments. Funding may be used to expand existing public access programs, create new public access programs or provide incentives to improve wildlife habitat on enrolled lands.

Up to $50 million is authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill through VPA-HIP through fiscal year 2012.State and tribal grant recipients use the federal funding to provide additional landowner incentives or assistance in order to increase the number of acres available for public access.

To learn more about CRP, visit your FSA county office or online at www.fsa.usda.gov/crp.

For more information on VPA-HIP, visit http://www.fsa.usda.gov/vpa.

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Sportsmen Criticize Proposed House Cuts to Farm Bill Conservation Programs
Deep cuts in USDA FY 2012 budget would decimate funding for fish and wildlife conservation, sportsman-access programs.

Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership

WASHINGTON --(Ammoland.com)- As House appropriators deliberate the Department of Agriculture’s budget for fiscal year 2012, sportsmen are sharply criticizing cuts proposed for Farm Bill conservation programs instrumental to fish and wildlife habitat and hunting and fishing, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership announced today.

The House Appropriations Committee is meeting this afternoon to consider more than a billion dollars in reductions to mandatory conservation programs agreed to last week by the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.

• Conservation programs facing drastic cuts include the following:
• The USDA conservation operations budget would be cut by $128 million.
• The Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program (WHIP) would be cut by $35 million.
• The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) would be reduced by 64,200 acres.
• The Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP) would be reduced by 96,000 acres.
• The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) would be cut by $350 million.
• Funding for the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA/HIP), also known as Open Fields, would be completely eliminated.

“Agricultural- and private-lands conservation remains a cornerstone of the TRCP’s policy work, and the efforts of the TRCP and our partner organizations have been instrumental in bolstering vital conservation programs in previous Farm Bills,” said Steve Kline, director of the TRCP Center for Agricultural and Private Lands.

“The reductions presently being considered represent a quarter century of taxpayer investment in conservation. Sportsmen strongly oppose these cuts.”

The TRCP’s farm policy work is guided by the Agriculture and Wildlife Working Group, formed by the TRCP to provide recommendations to Congress and the administration on conservation programs in the 2008 bill. Composed of representatives from the nation’s leading sportsmen’s groups, the AWWG currently is developing recommendations for the 2012 Farm Bill.

“These proposed reductions will hamstring the USDA’s ability to responsibly manage priority fish and wildlife habitats and help landowners reduce potential threats to their operations associated with priority wildlife concerns such as lesser prairie chickens, sage grouse, and New England cottontail, all of which are candidate species for listing under the ESA,” said Jennifer Mock Schaeffer, Farm Bill coordinator for the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies and AWWG chair.

“We prefer to use WHIP, EQIP, GRP and other conservation programs to help producers address these priority habitat concerns,” continued Mock Schaeffer, “and in the process to try to preclude the need to list the species. Cutting funding from these programs will eliminate opportunities to help private landowners and operators sustain their operations and secure these important wildlife habitats on privately owned lands.”

“Increasingly, sportsmen cite the inability to access lands and waters as an obstacle to hunting and fishing,” said Dave Nomsen, vice president of government affairs for Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever and AWWG member. “VPA/HIP, or Open Fields, addresses this problem by encouraging owners of privately held farm, ranch and forest lands to enable public access to their properties for wildlife-dependent recreation. VPA was included in the 2008 Farm Bill thanks to the unflagging support of hunters and anglers, and American sportsmen now urge continued funding of this critical and strictly voluntary public-access program.”

The Farm Bill is a vital part of U.S. private-lands conservation. Millions of acres of fish and wildlife habitat and the hunting and fishing opportunities they provide have been conserved and enhanced through Farm Bill programs. The TRCP Agriculture and Wildlife Working Group is committed to ensuring that the 2012 Farm Bill authorizes and strongly funds conservation programs and builds on a conservation legacy that secures America’s outdoor heritage.

“While sportsmen acknowledge the need for the federal government to reduce spending levels, we can’t forget that Farm Bill conservation programs like WRP and GRP are the underpinning of the almost $80 billion dollars a year that hunters and anglers spend pursuing fish and game,” said Dan Wrinn, director of public policy for Ducks Unlimited. “Furthermore, many of these expenditures are in rural areas, where communities already are struggling in these hard economic times.”

Funding for Farm Bill conservation programs already was reduced by nearly $500 million in the FY 2011 budget, and the House’s proposed cuts cast further doubt on conservation funding in the 2012 Farm Bill. The Senate will be considering agriculture spending requests later this year.

Learn more about the TRCP’s agricultural- and private-lands conservation work.

About:
Inspired by the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, the TRCP is a coalition of organizations and grassroots partners working together to preserve the tradition of hunting and fishing. Visit: www.trcp.org

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