Other Ag News: Stewarding Success: Conservation Stewardship Program

EDITOR’S NOTE: On October 9, 2024, NSAC released Stewarding Success: CSP Under the 2018 Farm Bill, a comprehensive analysis of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) over the course of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill). The report offers an in-depth analysis of CSP’s enrollment trends, conservation practices supported, and funding impacts, including the effects of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. This blog post is the first of a series of five posts highlighting the key findings of the report and offering a national overview of this vital farm bill conservation program.

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is a voluntary program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) through its Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). CSP aims to enhance natural resources while maintaining profitable agricultural production. It does this by providing farmers with financial and technical assistance to actively manage, maintain, and expand conservation activities – like cover crops, rotational grazing, ecologically-based pest management, buffer strips, and the transition to organic farming – even while they work their lands for production. CSP was first established in the 2002 Farm Bill as the Conservation Security Program, becoming the Conservation Stewardship Program in the 2008 Farm Bill. CSP was reauthorized in the 2014 Farm Bill and the 2018 Farm Bill. In this series, we feature highlights of CSP during the five-year life of the 2018 Farm Bill, from fiscal years (FY) 2019 to 2023. 

While CSP performed well during the 2018 Farm Bill lifespan, Congressional underinvestment in the program means CSP has not grown to meet farmer demand. CSP remains the largest conservation initiative in the US, with 69 million cumulative acres enrolled in the program in FY2023 (see Figure 1). Despite this strong foundation, this figure is actually a drop in cumulative acres of nearly 7 million acres during this farm bill cycle. 

While the figure above shows a general downward trend in total cumulative acreage, with a slight up-tick in FY2023, it is important to recall the multi-farm bill history of CSP’s funding. Both the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills cut CSP’s total funding, funding that remains subject to further reductions through mandatory sequestration, leading to a long-term trend of shrinking program acreage. 

Under the 2018 Farm Bill, CSP funding stair-stepped up from $700 million for new contracts in FY2019 to $1 billion for new contracts in FY2023. FY2023 CSP funding was also supplemented by $250 million dollars of IRA funding for new CSP contracts. However, CSP’s shrinking national footprint clearly shows that even the combined stair-step of 2018 Farm Bill funding and infusion of IRA dollars was not enough investment to reverse multiple farm bills’ worth of underfunding. This has been and continues to be a major loss for conservation agriculture, as acreage under CSP contracts is one of the clearest metrics available nationally of long-term conservation on the landscape supported through federal investment. Congress must fix this trend of disinvestment if we hope to see a growing CSP footprint under the next farm bill.

From FY2019 to FY2023, 36,799 new CSP contracts were signed, enrolling 49 million new acres in the program (see Figure 2). It is extremely encouraging that both the number of new contracts and acres enrolled increased substantially each year in FY2021, FY2022, and FY2023, and the role of IRA funding (shown in light green below) is significant in driving new enrollments in FY2023. Our next post in this series explores the role of the IRA in CSP in greater depth. 

Despite these encouraging new CSP contracts, the program is still unable to meet the significant demand from farmers wishing to enroll. Recent analysis from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) found that in FY2020 just 18% of CSP applicants were awarded contracts. Despite that number growing to 25% of applicants receiving contracts in FY2022 and 31% in FY2023, thanks to a boost from the IRA, the vast majority of farmers who want to participate in CSP are still unable to due to chronic underfunding by Congress. 

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) appropriated more than $19.5 billion to support climate smart agriculture within USDA’s existing conservation programs, including $3.25 billion for CSP. NSAC’s analysis concludes that the IRA was a resounding success in CSP, supporting the adoption of climate smart practices through thousands of new contracts and millions of new acres in FY2023. 

Of the 11,023 new CSP contracts signed in FY2023, 2,400 (22%) were funded through the IRA. Of the 14.71 million new acres enrolled in FY2023, 3.28 million (22%) were funded through the IRA.

As Figure 3 shows, the IRA played a significant role in CSP in FY2023, bringing more than three million additional acres into the program. The IRA provided substantial additional funding to CSP, helping to address the needs of American farmers and support long-term conservation efforts. It is vital that IRA funding for conservation be protected in the next farm bill to continue this trajectory of growth and keep invigorating existing USDA conservation programs. The next blog post in this series examines the IRA in greater detail.

CSP contracts span five years and are intended to support long-term conservation practices and whole-farm approaches to conservation. At the end of their five-year contract, CSP participants are eligible to renew their contract for an additional five years, provided they are in compliance with the original contract and agree to adopt additional conservation practices and address an additional priority resource concern within their operation. Under previous farm bills, farmers that committed to this level of long-term improvement to their conservation efforts could have their contracts automatically renewed. Unfortunately, in the 2018 Farm Bill, Congress mandated a transition from automatic renewal of expiring contracts to a competitive renewal process, which negatively and profoundly impacted the renewal rate and appears to have denied support to thousands of producers committed to long-term conservation on their farms. 

Overall, 12,479 (20%) CSP contracts were renewed between FY2018 and FY2023, a significant decline from annual highs of nearly 60% under the 2014 Farm Bill. The greatest number of CSP contracts was renewed in FY2023, with 2,765 contracts renewed. 17.6 million (27%) CSP acres (as opposed to contracts) were renewed between FY2018 and FY2023. No renewals took place in FY2019 as NRCS designed the competitive renewal process mandated by Congress. 

Contract renewals are an important tool to maintain and improve long-term conservation systems on farms, and opportunities for these renewals were greatly reduced under the 2018 Farm Bill. NSAC urges Congress to address this problem by reinstating automatic renewals for qualified producers in the next farm bill. A later blog post analyzes CSP renewals in detail.

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) plays a pivotal role in supporting socially disadvantaged producers (SDA), producers who belong to a community that has been subject to racial or ethnic prejudice. These farmers and ranchers often face systemic barriers such as difficulty accessing capital in the form of land and loans and historical discrimination from the USDA, lenders, and others, making support from programs such as CSP a valuable tool for long-term sustainability.  The 2018 Farm Bill maintained the mandate that NRCS allocate 5% of CSP funding to socially disadvantaged producers, with the aim of addressing these challenges. 

The percentage of CSP dollars obligated to socially disadvantaged producers held relatively steady over the course of the 2018 Farm Bill at just over the mandated 5% set-aside, varying from 5% of total CSP dollars obligated in FY2019 and FY2020 to highs of 7% in FY2021, FY2022, and FY2023. CSP acres enrolled by socially disadvantaged producers have ranged from a high of 12% of acres in FY2019 and FY2022 to a low of 7% of acres in FY2021. Socially disadvantaged producers enrolled 23% of total IRA acres in FY2023, remarkably higher than the acres enrolled by socially disadvantaged producers in the general farm bill pool. Our third post in this series explores the engagement of historically underserved producers in CSP in more detail.

NRCS offers farmers over 160 basic conservation practices and multiple enhancements for many of those practices, addressing 47 resource concerns. Farmers can choose the practices and enhancements that are most suited to address the priority resource concerns on their farm, including soil, water quality, climate resilience, and wildlife. Conservation bundles are groups of practices and enhancements that work together to provide greater cumulative conservation benefits than individual practices.

During the 2018 Farm Bill, CSP contracts continued to utilize well-established, scientifically proven conservation practices with a long-standing history. The top conservation practices during the 2018 Farm Bill were prescribed grazing, pest management conservation system (formerly integrated pest management, or IPM), nutrient management, and cover crops, demonstrating a strong programmatic focus on water quality and soil health. 

Importantly, there was strong synergy between the conservation practices most widely adopted by farmers and the climate-smart practices supported by the IRA. Seven of the top ten funded practices are considered climate smart and eligible for IRA funding in FY2024.

An enhancement refers to a specific conservation activity that builds upon or improves existing conservation practices to provide additional environmental benefits. These enhancements are designed to address resource concerns in a more advanced or comprehensive way, going beyond the standard conservation practices that are already in place on a farm or ranch and significantly increasing the impact of a conservation practice and acreage. For example, an enhancement to the “no till” conservation practice is using no till specifically to reduce energy use. If a farm adopts this enhancement, they must reduce total energy consumption of their field operations by at least 25% compared to their current tillage system. 

As the figure above shows, CSP supports long respected conservation practices and its enhancements provide significant expanded acreage and conservation benefits.

NSAC’s recent report highlights the overall success and impact of the Conservation Stewardship Program on American agriculture, while also showing the program has suffered under funding cuts. Currently, approximately 8% of America’s farmland is enrolled in CSP; it remains NRCS’ flagship conservation program. However, while CSP remains a crucial tool for on-farm conservation, the 2018 Farm Bill’s changes have diminished its effectiveness. IRA funding has provided a temporary boost, but permanent policy adjustments are necessary to sustain and expand CSP’s impact in the next farm bill.

Based on our analysis, NSAC recommends the following changes to build upon CSP’s success:

• Restore CSP’s funding to pre-2018 levels, 
• Establish permanent climate targeting,
• Reinstate automatic renewals, and
• Increase set-asides for historically underserved farmers in future farm bills. 

This is the first in a series of five blog posts that examines the findings of the report in greater detail. Forthcoming posts in the series examine:

• a detailed examination of the impact of the IRA on CSP,
• the engagement of historically underserved farmers,
• the impact of changing CSP contract renewal policies, and 
• a detailed state-by-state deep dive

The full report can be found here.

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