Conservation Security Program Sign-up for Concho Watershed Begins April 18

Information on the Concho Watershed selected for 2008 eligibility.

Temple, Texas- April 2, 2008.  Landowners in the Concho watershed in Texas can sign up for the Conservation Security Program (CSP) from April 18 through May 16, 2008, at local USDA Service Centers. The Concho watershed encompasses approximately 795,000 acres in Coke, Concho, Menard, Runnels, Schleicher, and Tom Green counties.

CSP is a voluntary conservation program that supports ongoing stewardship of private, agricultural working lands and rewards those producers who are meeting the highest standards of conservation and environmental management on their operations.

“Those who depend on the land to make a living are the best stewards of the land,” said Don Gohmert, state conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in Texas. “Since the first sign-up in 2004, CSP has offered payments for enhancing natural resources, rewarding those farmers and ranchers who are model conservationists, and providing incentives for other producers to achieve those same high standards of conservation in agriculture.”

Payments can include three components: 1) an annual stewardship component for the base level of conservation treatment, 2) an annual component for maintenance of existing conservation practices, and 3) an enhancement component for exceptional conservation effort. Enhancement activities could include limited pesticide applications, renewable energy generation, and widening existing riparian buffers for restoring critical stream habitat.

NRCS will hold two public meetings for landowners to learn more about the program before signing up. The first meeting will be April 16 at 9:00 a.m. at the Concho County Courthouse Courtroom, 152 N Roberts, Paint Rock, Texas. The second meeting will be April 17 at 6:00 p.m. at the Wall Volunteer Fire Department, Hall Loop 570, Wall, Texas.

To apply for CSP, NRCS asks potential participants to complete a CSP self-assessment workbook – available on the Web at www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/csp or from local NRCS offices – to find out if their operation meets the requirements of the program and qualifies for program participation. The self-assessment process contains a self-screening questionnaire for each land use to be enrolled. When this process is completed, the producer submits the CSP workbook to the local NRCS office during the sign-up period and meets with NRCS personnel to go over any additional needed documentation. NRCS will then determine if eligibility requirements are met and provide options for the producer’s decision on enrollment category placement.

Additional information on CSP, including eligible watersheds and a CSP self-assessment workbook, is available at www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/csp.

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