West Virginia Conservation Stewardship Program

Your Stewardship Goals. Our Assistance.

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is the largest conservation program in the United States. Through CSP, agricultural producers and forest landowners earn payments for actively managing, maintaining, and expanding conservation activities like cover crops, rotational grazing, ecologically-based pest management, buffer strips, and pollinator and beneficial insect habitat all while maintaining active agricultural production on their land. Crop producers, ranchers, dairy farmers, forest landowners, poultry producers, organic farmers, and specialty crop farmers all participate in the program. It is delivering real results on the ground and for the nations natural resources.

CSP participants voluntarily enroll in the program because it helps them enhance natural resources and improve their business operations - providing food, fiber, and energy. Participants enroll their entire ag operation in the program under a 5-year contract, with the option to renew for another 5 years. NRCS helps producers maintain or improve the existing conservation activities on their operations and adopt new ones. The program offers greater incentives for producers who want to kick their conservation up a notch with bundles of enhancements with higher payment rates.

Eligibility

CSP is available to all producers, regardless of operation size or type of crops produced. Applicants may include individuals, legal entities, and joint ventures operating production agricultural land or non-industrial private forest land (NIPF).

To participate in CSP, you must be in compliance with highly erodible land and wetland conservation requirements and have current farm records with USDA Farm Service Agency. You must have effective control of the land for the term of the proposed contract (5 years), be actively engaged in the day-to-day management of the operation and share in the risks associated with production.

All CSP applicants must meet—

1. Applicant Eligibility
   • Be the operator, owner, or other tenant of an agricultural operation in the FSA farm records management system.
   • Share in the risk of producing a crop; share in the crop available for marketing from the farm; and participate in the daily management, administration, and performance of the operation for the land included in the contract; and
   • Have effective control of the land
2. Land Eligibility
   • Agricultural Operation
   • Eligible Land—The following land may be part of the agricultural or NIPF operation, and eligible for enrollment in the program:
     1. Private agricultural land (crop, pasture)
     2. Agricultural Indian lands (crop, pasture)
     3. NIPF
     4. Associated agricultural land (AAL)
     5. Farmstead
     6. Public land associated with the land uses described above, if under effective control of the participant, and if a working component of the producer’s agricultural or NIPF operation.
3. Stewardship Threshold Eligibility
   • For CSP classic applications, an applicant’s documented conservation activities must meet or exceed the stewardship threshold as follows:
     1. At least two resource concern categories at the time of contract offer on all land uses included in the operation.
     2. At least one additional resource concern category by the end of the conservation stewardship contract on at least one land use.

Fiscal Year 2023 CSP

WV-NRCS establishes application ranking batching date which is a date a complete application must be filed to be considered for the respective funding cycle. Please note, NRCS accepts applications on a year-round basis and all applications received after the ranking batch date are automatically deferred to the next funding cycle. NRCS selects the highest ranked applications for funding based on ranking score order. If your application is preapproved for funding, NRCS will contact you to confirm your interest in receiving financial assistance in CSP.