NRCS Conservation Programs

Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP)

The Agricultural Act of 2014, enacted on February 7, 2014, consolidated the authorities of the former Wetlands Reserve Program, Grasslands Reserve Program, and Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program into the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). ACEP provides financial and technical assistance to help conserve agricultural lands and wetlands and their related benefits. Under the Agricultural Land Easements component, NRCS helps Indian tribes, state and local governments and non-governmental organizations protect working agricultural lands and limit non-agricultural uses of the land. Under the Wetlands Reserve Easements component, NRCS helps to restore, protect and enhance enrolled wetlands.

To learn more see ACEP

Financial Information: Total Obligations | Technical Assistance | Financial Assistance | Reimbursable
Conservation Practice Implementation Reports: by State | by State and Conservation Practices related to:
Fish & Wildlife Habitat | Grazing Land Conservation | Water Quality| Wetlands

Financial Information

The Financial Information section presents data from the USDA Office of the Chief Financial Officer's Financial Management Modernization Initiative (FMMI) system and its predecessor, the Foundation Financial Information System (FFIS). The Financial Information presented here is Total Obligations which the Government Accountability Office defines as binding agreements (orders placed, contracts awarded, services rendered, etc.) that will result in outlays, immediately or in the future. Before obligations can be incurred, budgetary resources must be made available by Congress. The obligations displayed for each year are the total obligations reported as of the end of each fiscal year. Subsequent adjustments after the close of the fiscal year are not included.

There are three categories of Total Obligations presented below:

• Technical Assistance (TA) Obligations refer to the scientific expertise, natural resource data, tools, and technology that USDA NRCS personnel provide to help producers, landowners, and communities develop conservation plans and implement conservation practices to solve natural resource problems at the field, operation, or larger landscape scales. NRCS is the lead agency for providing technical assistance for USDA.
  
• Financial Assistance (FA) Obligations refer to the commitment of funds to contracts for payments that will be made to program participants for the purchase of easements and for implementing conservation practices, which can provide both on-site and off-site conservation benefits.
  
• Reimbursable funds can be used to provide Technical or Financial Assistance, but are received from sources other than NRCS. They can also be transfers from or agreements with other Federal agencies.
  

Financial data should not be incorporated with the programmatic enrollment data provided below to derive a cost/acre or cost/agreement. Among other reasons, such calculations will not produce accurate results since both technical assistance and financial assistance obligations for associated conservation practices are included in these data, in addition to the obligations used for purchasing easements.

Conservation Practice Implementation

Conservation practices are planned and applied at the land unit level. The land unit is the smallest unit of land that has a permanent or contiguous boundary, a common land cover and land management, and a common owner or a common producer.

This RCA release uses an updated field definition. Heretofore the National Planning and Agreements Database (NPAD) Land Unit Id was used to represent fields wherever estimates of unique acres treated were required. This identifier is found in the planning land unit database layer. However, since conservation plans are often updated as producers’ conservation decisions evolve over time, there can be multiple land unit identifiers associated with the same field in NPAD. This can result in overestimating the number of fields and the associated unique acres. The Resource Analytics Lab has used GIS to develop a shape based algorithm to eliminate the overcounting of fields by selecting the single best shape out of the multiple shape based identifiers associated with the same field.

As conservation practices are measured in different units (acres, feet, square feet, etc.), the challenge for reporting performance at various levels is how to aggregate across practices. Although practices may affect resources beyond the land unit boundary, or be applied only on part of the land unit, the land unit does provide a common metric to aggregate over practices since each applied practice is associated with a specific land unit. Analysis of the data reveals that most practices are measured in acres and most of the practice applied amounts match the land unit acres of the field on which the practice was applied. Therefore, land unit acreage is the metric on which the acres of land receiving conservation treatment are calculated.

The data presented in this section reflect the fiscal year in which conservation practices were applied, which can occur at any point during the duration of the ACEP easement. Totals presented here are not comparable to program enrollment acres or easement acres.

Land Unit Acres Receiving Conservation

Land Unit Acres Receiving Conservation by Practice

The following set of chart/table combinations present conservation practice data grouped by purpose: Fish and Wildlife Habitat, Grazing Land Conservation, Water Quality, and Wetlands. Any practices not included in one of these groups are included in an All Other category. Data for practices in the All Other category can be downloaded in the Farm Bill Conservation Programs Profile csv file.

Note that there is some overlap between these groupings, since some practices address multiple resource concerns. Here land unit acres are counted each time a practice is applied on that land unit in the fiscal year. Therefore land unit acres may be counted multiple times across practices, practice groupings, and fiscal years. To learn more about specific conservation practices, see the National Handbook of Conservation Practices.

Conservation Practices Related to Fish and Wildlife

The following chart and table includes practices that are related to Fish and Wildlife Habitat Management. The environment that NRCS helps its clients conserve, maintain, and improve is also habitat for fish and wildlife and other biological resources. While every practice and management action taken on the land has some effect on biological resources, the following practices are specifically related to fish and wildlife habitat.

Only practices representing a significant portion of the total for the period are included in the above chart. Practices not included are summed into the All Other category.

The following table includes program information under which the above practices related to Fish and Wildlife Management were applied. These data reflect the geographic extent of the land treated with fish and wildlife habitat practices by each conservation program during a fiscal year. Land unit acres may be counted multiple times across fiscal years, but are only counted once per fiscal year.

Conservation Practices Related to Grazing Land Conservation

The following chart and table includes practices that are related to Grazing Land Conservation. NRCS is committed to conserving and enhancing private grazing land resources. This includes conservation practices which: conserve and improve wildlife habitat on private grazing land; conserve and improve fish habitat and aquatic systems through grazing land conservation treatment; protect and improve water quality; improve the dependability and consistency of water supplies; and identify and manage weed, noxious weed, and brush encroachment problems. Note that only practices applied on grazed range, grazed forest, native and naturalized pasture, or pasture land are included.

Only practices representing a significant portion of the total for the period are included in the above chart. Practices not included are summed into the All Other category.

The following table includes program information under which the above practices related to Grazing Land Conservation were applied. These data reflect the geographic extent of grazing land treated with conservation practices by each conservation program during a fiscal year. Land unit acres may be counted multiple times across fiscal years, but are only counted once per fiscal year.

Conservation Practices Related to Water Quality

The following chart and table includes practices that are related to Water Quality. Water quality is an indicator of the health of our environment and reflects what occurs on the land. The primary water quality issues from agriculture are sediment, nutrients, pesticides, pathogens, and in some parts of the country, salinity. Using conservation practices to improve land in an environmentally sound manner will result in better water quality for drinking, recreation, wildlife, fisheries and industry.

Only practices representing a significant portion of the total for the period are included in the above chart. Practices not included are summed into the All Other category.

The following table includes program information under which the above practices related to Water Quality were applied. These data reflect the geographic extent of land treated with water quality practices by each conservation program during a fiscal year. Land unit acres may be counted multiple times across fiscal years, but are only counted once per fiscal year.

Conservation Practices Related to Wetlands

The following chart and table includes practices that are related to Wetlands. Healthy wetland ecosystems function to modulate drought and floods, provide wildlife habitat, filter pollutants, retain sediment, store carbon, and cycle nutrients. The goal of the wetland conservation practices is to restore, enhance and protect the quality and quantity of wetlands.

The following table includes program information under which the above practices related to Wetlands were applied. These data reflect the geographic extent of land treated with wetland conservation practices by each conservation program during a fiscal year. Land unit acres may be counted multiple times across fiscal years, but are only counted once per fiscal year.

More Information

The data in this report in CSV format (file includes all titles and table notes) can be downloaded here.

Return to the RCA Data Viewer.

For more information about NRCS Conservation Programs, visit http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/programs/

Citation for this website:
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Financial Management Modernization Initiative (FMMI) October 2022
National Planning and Agreements Database October 2022
Natural Resources Conservation Service, Washington, DC. 31 March 2023^*
<http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/resources/data-and-reports/rca-data-viewer/>
^*[use date the website was accessed]