The annual Washington Watch event is underway in the nation’s capitol after a two-year hiatus.
This morning Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced USDA is accepting more than 2 million acres in offers from producers and landowners through the Conservation Reserve Program General Sign-up.
“We are going to lose about 3.5, 3.4 million acres from CRP that’s going out. What’s coming in is to 2,071,495 acres. That represents about 55% of the contracts that are expiring are coming back in. We’ve actually received a slightly lower amount of acres, new Acres last year. For example, we saw about 700,000 acres in the program, this year it’s about 300,000 less. So the result is we will see what happens next week when the grassland signup numbers come in, but the expectation is that we’ll probably see suddenly fewer acres in the program. That’s not surprising, given the current state of the market and given the current concerns that people have about food security.”
Related:
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Economists Call to Open Up CRP to Crops due to Potential Shortages from Russia/Ukraine Conflict
What the 2023 Farm Bill Could Mean for Conservation