Welcome to the Louisiana NRCS website
About Louisiana NRCS - "Helping People Help the Land"
From the windswept marshes of coastal Louisiana, to the rice and crawfish fields in Cajun country, to the upland forestland at the top of our state, the beauty of Louisiana captivates. Our landscape is as diverse as our producers, with a common thread that binds our state as one... Conservation.
Who we are:
Welcome to the NRCS in Louisiana. Sometimes defining what a federal agency does for the public can be confusing, and rarely does one word sum it all up. So, when someone asks us, “What can the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) do for me”, we want to provide a clear and concise message so that you know exactly what services we offer you. What can the NRCS do for you? We help you help the land.
What we do:
We help you help the land by providing you, our customers and partners, technical and financial assistance, which we offer through five business lines. The first business line is “conservation planning and technical consultation”. We provide technical consultation and planning assistance to help you make beneficial decisions about natural resource management. Our second business line is “conservation implementation”. We help you install conservation practices and systems that meet established technical standards and specifications. The third business line is “natural resource inventory and assessment”. By collecting, analyzing and providing you with natural resource data, we help you to establish the best conservation plans and resource-use decisions for all landscapes. Fourth is, “natural resource technology transfer”. We develop and distribute a wide array of technology pertaining to resource assessment, conservation planning, and conservation system installation and evaluation. This also includes training, and certification in standards and procedures. The last of the five business lines is “financial assistance”. The NRCS provides financial assistance to encourage the adoption of beneficial land-treatment practices that conserve and protect our nation’s valuable natural resources.
How we can help:
Financial assistance is awarded to those who voluntarily enter into contracts, easements and agreements to conserve natural resources. Financial assistance is provided through cost-share/ incentives, easements, grants and stewardship payments. So, what can the NRCS do for you? We help you help the land. It’s that simple. By providing technical and financial assistance through our five business lines, we will help you help the land.
Louisiana State Office
State Programs and Initiatives
NRCS offers voluntary programs to eligible landowners and agricultural producers to provide financial and technical assistance to help manage natural resources in a sustainable manner. Through these programs the agency approves contracts to provide technical and financial assistance to plan and implement conservation practices. These practices address natural resource concerns or opportunities to help save energy, improve soil, water, plant, air, animal and related resources on agricultural lands and non-industrial private forest land.
State Payment Schedule
NRCS provides financial assistance for selected conservation practices. The availability and amount of financial assistance can vary between states.
Civil Rights Committee
The National Civil Rights Advisory Committee to the Chief (NCRACC) is designed to provide management officials and employees with counsel and advice to enhance and ensure compliance with their equal employment opportunity and program delivery responsibilities.
State Technical Committee
State Technical Committees serve in an advisory capacity to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other agencies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the implementation of the natural resources conservation provisions of Farm Bill legislation.
How to Get Assistance
Do you farm or ranch and want to make improvements to the land that you own or lease?
Natural Resources Conservation Service offers technical and financial assistance to help farmers, ranchers and forest landowners.
To get started with NRCS, we recommend you stop by your local NRCS field office. We’ll discuss your vision for your land.
NRCS provides landowners with free technical assistance, or advice, for their land. Common technical assistance includes: resource assessment, practice design and resource monitoring. Your conservation planner will help you determine if financial assistance is right for you.
We’ll walk you through the application process. To get started on applying for financial assistance, we’ll work with you:
- To fill out an AD 1026, which ensures a conservation plan is in place before lands with highly erodible soils are farmed. It also ensures that identified wetland areas are protected.
- To meet other eligibility certifications.
Once complete, we’ll work with you on the application, or CPA 1200.
Applications for most programs are accepted on a continuous basis, but they’re considered for funding in different ranking periods. Be sure to ask your local NRCS district conservationist about the deadline for the ranking period to ensure you turn in your application in time.
As part of the application process, we’ll check to see if you are eligible. To do this, you’ll need to bring:
- An official tax ID (Social Security number or an employer ID)
- A property deed or lease agreement to show you have control of the property; and
- A farm tract number.
If you don’t have a farm tract number, you can get one from USDA’s Farm Service Agency. Typically, the local FSA office is located in the same building as the local NRCS office. You only need a farm tract number if you’re interested in financial assistance.
NRCS will take a look at the applications and rank them according to local resource concerns, the amount of conservation benefits the work will provide and the needs of applicants.
If you’re selected, you can choose whether to sign the contract for the work to be done.
Once you sign the contract, you’ll be provided standards and specifications for completing the practice or practices, and then you will have a specified amount of time to implement. Once the work is implemented and inspected, you’ll be paid the rate of compensation for the work if it meets NRCS standards and specifications.
