Virginia Land Use and Protection
Virginia’s major non-urban land uses include forestry, crop production and pastures. Most Virginia wetlands are open or forested and only seasonally saturated.
From the Appalachians to the Chesapeake, our conservationists are working to keep Virginia agriculture going strong with customized recommendations to make operations more sustainable and productive while also protecting the scenic beauty of these diverse landscapes.
Virginia farmers, cattle producers and forest landowners are the true experts on their operations. We don’t mandate conservation activities but instead work collaboratively to develop strategies for achieving their goals and vision. We value our role as trusted advisors and customize our approach for each operation. We’re also strong advocates for locally-led conservation, closely collaborating with our sister agencies, state and local governments and advocacy groups to protect Virginia’s precious natural resources.
Virginia State Office
News and Publications
View Virginia press releases, success stories and PDF versions of many of our brochures and fact sheets.
Conservation Planning
Our conservationists can develop customized plans to help conserve and protect natural resources on operations of all types and sizes. Reach out to your local office to get started.
Soil Health
Learn more about the Virginia soil health movement that is empowering farmers to learn about their soils, learn from each other and come up with their own soil management solutions.
Watershed Operations
Get more information on how Virginia NRCS works with local partners help them to conserve and develop their land and water resources before and after major storm events to address natural resource and related economic problems on a watershed basis.
Join Our Team
Conservation Careers
Conservation Careers
Start or grow your conservation career with Virginia NRCS to help ensure that communities across the commonwealth enjoy the benefits of productive soil, clean water, clean air and abundant wildlife that come from a healthy environment.
Earth Team Volunteers
Earth Team Volunteers
Gain valuable work experience that can help introduce you to the various fields of natural resources conservation. About 10 percent of Virginia NRCS employees began their careers as Earth Team volunteers.
Conservation Partners
Conservation Partners
Virginia NRCS works through strong conservation partnerships to get more "boots on the ground" to address a broad range of resource concerns and connect with more historically underserved, beginning and urban farmers.
State Programs and Initiatives
Virginia NRCS uses the full Farm Bill toolbox to design conservation systems that address specific resource concerns on agricultural and non-industrial private forested land. Core programs like EQIP and CSP have helped expand our footprint on the land through implementation of practices with proven environmental benefits. We also leverage programs like RCPP and CIG to strengthen and expand partnerships that support locally led conservation and innovation. Landscape initiatives like National Water Quality Initiative (NWQI), Golden Wing Warbler (GWW) and Longleaf Pine (LLPI) provide targeted funding to help producers and landowners achieve their stewardship and operational goals.
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 number.
If you don’t have a farm 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 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. View Application Ranking Dates by State.
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.
