General CRP sign up possible in late summer

Washington Ag Today February 5, 2010 Farmers and landlords with Conservation Reserve Program contracts that expire this September might get a chance to participate in a general CRP sign up before their agreements run out.

Rod Hamilton, the Chief for Farm Programs for the Washington State Farm Service Agency Office, told a Pacific Northwest Farm Forum seminar in Spokane Thursday that the national FSA office has instructed states to prepare the process for a general sign up in 2010. Hamilton said the big unknown is when an environmental statement on the CRP, as changed by the 2008 Farm Bill, will be completed.

Hamilton: “If that process is completed by late June or early July the national office feels we have time to conduct a sign up, figure out who gets excepted into the program, prepare contracts for those folks, and have all that done and everything in place by September 30 so those contracts would start the day after the current one expires:”

Hamilton said a delay in the completion of the environmental impact statement would mean there won’t be time for a sign up before contracts expire. If that happens he says higher ups in USDA could decide to offer some kind of extensions to all or some expiring contracts.

Hamilton: “I think it is unlikely that they are just going to cut everybody lose and just say tough break we are done for now. But unfortunately we are not going to know in all likelihood until we are starting to get into harvest. Not a great time for us to get folks out of the field and come into an FSA office.”

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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