Deadline at hand for one million dollars for wildlife conservation program

Washington Ag Today April 10, 2009 Washington landowners only have until next Wednesday, April 15th, to sign up for USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service's Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, or WHIP. That's the deadline to be considered for 2009 funding and Washington NRCS assistant state conservationist Dave Brown says the state has a lot more WHIP money this year. Brown: "We do. The state of Washington has just right at a million dollars of financial assistance funds for the wildlife habitat program this year, which is just not quite double what we had in years past." Brown the WHIP program is now operating under 2008 Farm Bill rules. Brown: "There was some indication originally that under the new farm bill that the land would have to currently be in agricultural use. And that has been backed off now to include land that has the potential, or suitable for agricultural use. So that should enlarge our pool of potential landowners quite a bit." The WHIP program covers 75 percent of wildlife habitat installation costs. Brown says in Washington the program is used where fish and wildlife habitat has been affected by past activities or land management. He says there is also increasing interest in providing habitat for native pollinators. So, WHIP sign up deadline is April 15th. Contact you local NRCS office. I'm Bob Hoff and that's Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.