EQIP application dealine June 28

LINCOLN -- Nebraska farmers and ranchers have until June 28, 2002 to apply for more than $4 million dollars, and maybe double that amount, that will soon be available to protect cropland and grazing land with soil and water saving practices, said Steve Chick, State Conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service today.

"With the passage of the new farm bill there have been additional dollars appropriated and other changes in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, one of the main soil and water conservation programs offered by USDA," said Chick.

In previous years, enrollment in EQIP required a 5-10 year contract between the USDA and the producer. Now 2-10 year contracts are allowable. Cost sharing with the contract may pay up to 75 percent of the cost of certain conservation practices. Also, participants will be eligible for up to $450,000 of EQIP cost share payments between now through 2007. Previous contracts had a $50,000 limit.

Another new component of EQIP is a ground and surface water savings effort for the eight states in the High Plains Aquifer, which includes Nebraska. NRCS in Nebraska is expecting to receive several million additional dollars to help landowners reduce the amount of water used in their ag operations.

"This could involve actions from making improvements to a sprinkler irrigation system, converting from furrow irrigation to more efficient sprinkler systems, installing meters on furrow systems, or even converting from irrigation to dry land crops," said Chick.

"We have not yet received the final program guidelines or dollar amounts. We do know they are coming and we want to give Nebraska landowners time to apply for these funds," added Chick.

Farmers and ranchers will have until June 28, to make an application for these funds at the local NRCS office. "All that needs to be completed is the application.

After June 28, we will evaluate and rank the applications. If the application is approved, an actual contract will not be signed until late summer. We will continue to take applications throughout the summer. Applications received after June 28 will not be ranked until a later date," he said.

"We have over 1,000 applications now in our county offices. We will be contacting all those people to see if they want to change their application with the new program options. We also need to allow time if there are other folks now interested in the program who want to apply," explained Chick.

Since 1997, over 2,100 EQIP contracts have been written in Nebraska totaling more than $22 million dollars committed to conservation work.

These dollars do not include the money invested by the individual landowner.

People interested in applying for these conservation dollars should contact their local NRCS office in the USDA Service Center.