Conservation Reserve Program

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is a cost-share and rental payment program of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Under the program, the government pays farmers to take certain agriculturally used croplands out of production and convert them to vegetative cover, such as cultivated or native bunchgrasses and grasslands, wildlife and pollinators food and shelter plantings, windbreak and shade trees, filter and buffer strips, grassed waterways, and riparian buffers. The purpose of the program is to reduce land erosion, improve water quality and effect wildlife benefits.

The program originally began in the 1950s as the conservation branch of the Soil Bank Program which was enacted by the Agriculture Act of 1956. The theory behind this branch of the Soil Bank Program was to focus on lands that were at high risk of erosion, remove them from agricultural production, and establish native or alternative permanent vegetative cover in an effort to counteract actual or potential erosion. This was considered by proponents to be beneficial to sustainable agriculture generally, by lessening the effects of erosion. Originally, the program called for three-year contracts in which the government would pay for land improvements that increased soil, water, forestry, or wildlife quality if the farmer would agree not to harvest or graze contracted land.

Although the roots of the program were established in the 1950s, advocates did not start pushing the program heavily until the 1980s, in response to more prevalent practices of the 1970s, whereby farmers increasingly began to cultivate "fence row to fence row", and remove native habitat and vegetative stands from the fields, which was perceived as having detrimental effects on soil, water, and habitat quality [2]. Many programs would be established in the 1980s to address these issues.

The CRP has gone through many changes. Whenever there is a new proposed Farm Bill, the CRP is a large focus due to a high level of public pressure and the program's perceived benefits.

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