03/28/05 CSP sign up begins

Washington Ag March 28, 2005 Sign up for the Conservation Security Program or CSP, starts today and runs to May 27th for agricultural producers in 12 watersheds in Washington. Natural Resources Conservation Service State Conservationist Gus Hughbanks, whose agency administers the program is urging Washington producers not to wait until the deadline to apply. He also says if they haven't already, producers should attend one of the local informational CSP meetings. Dates and locations are listed on the state NRCS website. National NRCS chief Bruce Knight highlights some of the changes made in CSP since the first sign up. Knight: "One of the things producers said is that at Tier I, you can go up to five years, in Tiers II and III you can go up to ten years. Some producers have started in Tier I. They want to graduate up to Tier II or III. Want to make sure they can get to a ten year contract length. So we made that change. We expanded the opportunity for these environmental improvement enhancement payments. We are very concerned about, we want to make sure that this program works well for limited resource and beginning farmers not just well established farmers and so we have increased the cost-share percentage for those limited resource and beginning farmers as well." The voluntary CSP rewards farmers with payments for their ongoing stewardship of private agricultural working lands. I'm Bob Hoff.