USDA Funding for Conservation

OMAHA (DTN) -- Organizations looking to tap into USDA funds under the Regional Conservation Partnership Program have until July 8 to apply for this year's round of $235 million for large-scale conservation projects.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Monday the second round of applications and projects under the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which was created in the 2014 farm bill.

RCPP basically encourages multiple groups working with farmers, livestock producers or forest landowners to work together on large-scale landscape project. One of the goals is to leverage the federal funding to draw at least an equal amount of funds from all of the various other partners involved in such a project.

Water quality and water conservation are major areas of focus under the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. The secretary said 80% of funds under grants for 2014 and 2015 went to projects related to water quality and water conservation. "We would anticipate and expect the focus on water in the first round will continue," Vilsack said.

Vilsack noted that the current appropriations talks in Congress could end up affecting the final amount of funds available for this year's grants. "We're making available $235 million," Vilsack said. "Now that's a pre-sequestration number. Hopefully, Congress will eliminate sequestration. If not, it may be adjusted at some point in time, but we're hopeful the full $235 million may be available for utilization."

Just last week, Vilsack complained to agricultural reporters about congressional budget cuts continuing to carve away at USDA operations and programs. The secretary said he felt USDA had taken a disproportionate amount of cuts in recent years under the appropriations process. Vilsack also felt that if Congress were waiving sequestration cuts for defense programs that Congress should do the same for domestic programs such as USDA.

There should be no shortage of proposals for funds. The secretary pointed to high demand for conservation programs. The first round of 250 final RCPP projects approved last January came from 600 applications for the funds. Demand for funds requested was six times the amount of funding made available.

In January, USDA awarded $394 million in the first round of grants for RCPP, which included funding projects for both fiscal-year 2014 and 2015.

USDA has made some tweaks to the program. Vilsack said USDA learned from last year and realized USDA funding should be capped at $10 million for any single project. That cap includes both the financial value and technical assistance demands that might be placed on USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service. USDA staff came to realize sometime during the work on last year's grants that groups need to spell out just how much NRCS time and labor will be needed to assist on a project.

Moreover, NRCS also needs to pay attention to payment eligibility issues for landowners who might be involved in these regional partnerships.

USDA also is convinced that the $235 million set aside for this year will be matched by the other partners applying for the Regional Conservation Partnership funds. That would translate into roughly $470 million in investment for projects largely focusing on areas such as water quality, soil health, drought mitigation, wildlife habitat and agricultural efficiency.

Expanded out over five years, if Congress fully funds the $1.2 billion authorized for Regional Conservation Partnership Program, then Vilsack said the program would generate about $2.4 billion in overall conservation investments.

The secretary held a conference call from Colorado where he was signing a memorandum of understanding for a $1.8 million project approved in the last round of funding to help convert flood-irrigation systems to more efficient irrigation systems.

More information on the Regional Conservation Partnership Program can be found at: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/…

Chris Clayton can be reached at Chris.Clayton@dtn.com

Follow him on Twitter @ChrisClaytonDTN

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