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Programs & Initiatives

Easement

Agricultural Conservation Easement Program

The Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) helps landowners, land trusts, and other entities protect, restore, and enhance wetlands or protect working farms and ranches through conservation easements.

Easement

Agricultural Land Easements

Agricultural Land Easements help private and tribal landowners, land trusts, and other entities such as state and local governments protect croplands and grasslands on working farms and ranches by limiting non-agricultural uses of the land through conservation easements.

Program

Agricultural Management Assistance

The Agricultural Management Assistance (AMA) helps agricultural producers manage financial risk through diversification, marketing or natural resource conservation practices. 

Initiative

Air Quality Initiative

The NRCS National Air Quality Initiative helps agricultural producers meet air quality compliance requirements by providing technical and financial assistance for improving agricultural operations.

Program

Conservation Innovation Grants

Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) is a competitive program that supports the development of new tools, approaches, practices, and technologies to further natural resource conservation on private lands. 

Program

Conservation Reserve Program

The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) provides a yearly rental payment to farmers who remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and plant species that will improve environmental health and quality.

Program

Conservation Stewardship Program

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) helps you build on your existing conservation efforts while strengthening your operation. 

Watershed Program

Emergency Watershed Protection

The Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) Program, a federal emergency recovery program, helps local communities recover after a natural disaster strikes.

Program

Environmental Quality Incentives Program

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is NRCS’ flagship conservation program that helps farmers, ranchers and forest landowners integrate conservation into working lands.

Initiative

Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative

The Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI) was developed as a coordinated effort to identify priority issues, find solutions, and effect change on private grazing land, enhancing existing conservation programs.

Initiative

Great Lakes Restoration Initiative

Since 2010, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI) has served as a catalyst for unprecedented federal agency coordination to protect and restore the largest system of fresh surface water in the world.

Easement

Healthy Forests Reserve Program

The Healthy Forests Reserve Program (HFRP) helps landowners restore, enhance and protect forestland resources on private and tribal lands through easements and financial assistance.

Initiative

High Tunnel Initiative

A High Tunnel System, commonly called a “hoop house,” is an increasingly popular conservation practice for farmers, and is available with financial assistance through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).

Initiative

Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership

The Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership program (16 U.S.C. § 6592d) is working to improve the health and resilience of forest landscapes across National Forest System land and state, tribal, and private lands.

Initiative

Landscape Conservation Initiatives

NRCS uses Landscape Conservation Initiatives to accelerate the benefits of voluntary conservation programs, such as cleaner water and air, healthier soil and enhanced wildlife habitat.

Initiative

Lesser Prairie-Chicken Initiative

Best known for their dramatic courtship display, the lesser prairie chicken depends on prairie and grassland ecosystems that have evolved under the interaction of fire and large herbivore grazing over the years.

Initiative

Longleaf Pine Initiative

Longleaf pine forests once encompassed more than 90 million acres across the Southeast, stretching from eastern Texas to southern Virginia.

Initiative

Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watersheds Initiative

The Mississippi River Basin Healthy Watershed Initiative (MRBI) is accelerating voluntary, on-farm conservation investments and focused water quality monitoring and assessment resources in the Mississippi River watershed.

Initiative

Monarch Butterflies

The Monarch Butterfly is one of the most familiar butterflies in North America. 

Initiative

National Water Quality Initiative

As USDA’s premiere water quality initiative, National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI) provides a way to accelerate voluntary, on-farm conservation investments and focused water quality monitoring and assessment resources where they can deliver the greatest benefits for clean water.

Initiative

On-Farm Energy Initiative

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) On-Farm Energy Initiative helps farmers and ranchers make voluntary improvements that can boost energy efficiency on the farm.

Initiative

Organic Initiative

The National Organic Initiative, funded through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), is a voluntary conservation program that provides technical and financial assistance for organic farmers and ranchers, or those interested in transitioning to organic.

Program

Regional Conservation Partnership Program

The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) is a partner-driven approach to conservation that funds solutions to natural resource challenges on agricultural land. 

Initiative

Sage Grouse Initiative

The sage grouse, a chicken-like bird uniquely adapted to this habitat, is the poster child of the sagebrush country.

Initiative

Sentinel Landscapes Initiative

The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership is a coalition of federal agencies, state and local governments, and nongovernmental organizations that work with private landowners to advance sustainable land management practices around military installations and ranges.

Program

Snow Survey and Water Supply Forecasting Program

NRCS hydrologists manage a comprehensive network of manually-measured snow courses and automated Snow Telemetry (SNOTEL) monitoring sites throughout the West, manage the data collection process, and estimate the runoff that will occur when it melts.

Initiative

Source Water Protection

Source water protection includes a wide variety of actions and activities aimed at safeguarding, maintaining or improving sources of drinking water and their contributing areas.

Program

Water Bank Program

The intent of the Water Bank Program is to keep water on the land for the benefit of migratory wildlife such as waterfowl. 

Watershed Program

Watershed and Flood Prevention Operations (WFPO) Program

WATERSHED PROGRAMS - WFPO

The Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention (WFPO) Program helps units of federal, state, local and federally recognized tribal  governments (project sponsors) protect and restore watersheds.

Watershed Program

Watershed Programs

Watersheds impact everyone; every community, farm, ranch, and forest. They provide a vital resource for all living things to survive and thrive. All watersheds are interconnected, creating a land-water system that conveys water to its final destination such as a river, lake, wetland, or estuary.

Watershed Program

Watershed Rehabilitation

The Watershed Rehabilitation Program (REHAB) helps project sponsors rehabilitate aging dams that are reaching the end of their design life and/or no longer meet federal or state safety criteria or performance standards. Since 1948, NRCS has assisted local sponsors in constructing over 11,850 dams.

Initiative

WaterSMART

NRCS’s EQIP WaterSMART Initiative (WSI) is a collaboration with the Bureau of Reclamation to coordinate investments in priority areas for improving water conservation and drought resilience.

Easement

Wetland Reserve Easements

Wetlands Reserve Easements (WRE) help private and tribal landowners protect, restore and enhance wetlands which have been previously degraded due to agricultural uses.

Easement

Wetland Reserve Enhancement Partnership

The Wetland Reserve Enhancement Partnership (WREP) is a voluntary program through which NRCS enters into agreements with eligible partners to leverage resources to carry out high priority wetland protection, restoration, and enhancement and to improve wildlife habitat.

Initiative

Working Lands for Wildlife

Through Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW), USDA uses a win-win approach to systematically target conservation efforts to improve agricultural and forest productivity which enhance wildlife habitat on working landscapes.