Announcing April 19th Application Date for Conservation Stewardship Program

CSP helps farmers and forest landowners expand their conservation activities and take their conservation to the next level. Through CSP, agricultural producers and forest landowners earn payments for actively managing, maintaining, and expanding conservation and climate smart activities like cover crops, forest stand improvement, tree and shrub establishment and pollinator and beneficial insect habitat – all while maintaining active agricultural or forest production on their land. CSP also encourages the adoption of new technologies and new management techniques such as precision nutrient management, improved grazing systems, on-site carbon storage and planting for high carbon sequestration rate, and new soil amendments to improve water quality.

New York will be using ACT NOW for all CSP ranking pools in FY24. ACT NOW allows NRCS to expedite application approval and contract obligation in a designated ranking pool when an eligible application meets or exceeds a state-determined minimum ranking score, which is 14.

How to Apply

Submit applications at your local NRCS Service Center. All applications are competitive and are ranked based on national, state and locally identified resource priorities and the overall benefit to the environment. Applications received after April 19 will be considered in the next batching period.