Helping People Help the Land
NRCS staff are dedicated to natural resource conservation. They live and work in the communities they service, providing technical expertise and financial assistance to Missouri's farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, and other land stewards. NRCS employees help people help the land.
Welcome to NRCS in Missouri!
Missouri NRCS, led by our State Conservationist and our State Leadership Team.
Scott Edwards, State Conservationist
The NRCS provides service in every county across Missouri. The Agency is committed to helping private landowners care and make healthy choices for the land and water, while using them productively. Through voluntary incentive-based programs, NRCS works directly with farmers, ranchers, forest owners and other land stewards to provide technical expertise and financial assistance to make conservation work on private lands.
Missouri NRCS, led by our State Conservationist and our State Leadership Team, serves diverse agricultural needs through four Area offices 114 field offices, and a Plant Materials Center. We provide voluntary, cost-effective technical and program assistance to farmers, ranchers, and forest stewards to conserve, protect and improve soil, water, air, plants, and animals. In doing so, we enable agriculture producers to better manage their natural resources while meeting their operational goals and objectives.
How to find your local NRCS offices: Visit the USDA Service Center Locator.
Missouri State Office
Cast your vote in the NRCS Photo Contest
State Programs and Initiatives
NRCS offers a variety of programs and conservation incentives designed to fit your farm operation and your specific objectives. We work to identify resource concerns and help you install on-the-ground practices and solutions customized for your land, soils, and farm. You can sign up for programs any time.
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.
