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A landowner in Chippewa County, Wisconsin worked with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Chippewa County Land Conservation and Forest Management (LCFM) to restore a wetland area and create a riparian buffer.

2025 IRA-ACEP Sign-Up

IRA-ACEP sign-up dates to compete for fiscal year 2025 funding are October 4, 2024 and December 20, 2024. 

NRCS in Maryland is currently accepting applications from agricultural producers and forest landowners for Inflation Reduction Act - Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP-IRA) for both the Agricultural Land Easements (ALE) and Wetland Reserve Easements (WRE) components. While applications for ACEP-IRA are taken on a continuous basis, the sign-up dates to compete for fiscal year 2025 funding are October 4, 2024 and December 20, 2024. 

Under the Wetlands Reserve Easements component, NRCS provides technical and financial assistance to restore, protect and enhance wetlands. Under the Agricultural Land Easements component, NRCS helps state and local governments and non-governmental organizations protect working agricultural lands and limit non-agricultural uses of the land. 

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) authorized the use of ACEP funds for easements or interests in land most likely to reduce, capture, avoid, or sequester carbon dioxide, methane, or nitrous oxide emissions on program-eligible land.

IRA-ACEP Agricultural Land Easements (ALE)
Fiscal year 2025 priority areas include:

  1. Eligible agricultural lands currently classified as grassland or native vegetation (e.g., sagebrush, tall grass prairie) where NRCS has identified a high threat of conversion to a non- grassland use.
  2. Eligible cropland or grassland where NRCS has identified a high threat of conversion to a nonagricultural use.

Applicants must be a federally recognized Indian Tribe, state or local units of government, or a non-governmental organization. Applicants must have an established farmland protection program that purchases agricultural conservation easements for the purpose of protecting agriculture use and related conservation values by limiting conversion to nonagricultural uses of the land.

USDA provides up to 50 percent of the appraised fair market value of the conservation easement in this voluntary. The qualified landowner retains ownership and continues to use the land for agricultural purposes.

IRA-ACEP Wetland Reserve Easements 
Fiscal Year 2025 priority areas include:

  1. Highly organic soils that will optimize the soil carbon sequestration potential and prevent increased greenhouse gas emissions through the maintenance of existing non-cultivated areas, restoration of previously cultivated areas to perennial vegetative cover, and restoration of the natural hydrology to keep the soils saturated and anaerobic.
  2. Prior converted or degraded wetlands that will be restored to native (adapted or alternative) forests (e.g., bottomland hardwood forests)
  3. Eligible existing forest habitat that will be maintained as forest habitat through an NRCS-approved forest management plan.
  4. Approved localized priorities.
    • Montane wet meadows
    • Ephemeral wetlands

NRCS provides technical and financial assistance directly to private landowners and Indian tribes to restore, protect, and enhance wetlands through the purchase of a wetland reserve easement.  For acreage owned by an Indian tribe, there is an additional enrollment option of a 30-year contract.

Land eligible for wetland reserve easements includes farmed or converted wetland that can be successfully and cost-effectively restored.

Application materials can be found on the Maryland NRCS ACEP website. Fully completed application packets must be received by no later than 4:00 PM October 4, 2024 and December 20, 2024 to be considered. 

Application packets may be sent to the attention of Easements Program Manager, by email (preferred) to tiffany.davis@usda.gov; or mailed USDA-NRCS Maryland, 5601 Sunnyside Ave, Mail stop 5598, Beltsville, MD 20705.