South Dakota Land-Conservation Program Gets More Selective.

By Scott Waltman, American News, Aberdeen, S.D. Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News

Sep. 8--South Dakota farmers didn't fare well in efforts to enroll land in the latest Conservation Reserve Program sign-up period.

Only 16.5 percent of requests from the state were accepted.

Loren Schaller of the Farm Service Agency office in Aberdeen said much of South Dakota, including the northeast corner of the state, didn't have the type of land the federal officials wanted to enroll in CRP. Schaller said "environmentally sensitive land" is what they were looking for. This area doesn't have a lot of highly erodible land home to endangered species, he said.

In past sign-up periods, South Dakota farmers have fared considerably better, sometimes getting more than half their acres enrolled, FSA officials said.

In Brown County, only one contract offer for 10.6 acres was accepted.

According to the FSA, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Texas have had higher-than-usual acceptance rates in the past. And, only 39.2 million acres of land nationwide can be enrolled in CRP. As the total is approached, officials must be more selective.

As of July 30, there were 34,117,275 acres of CRP land nationwide.

CRP pays property owners to not farm land if it's environmentally sensitive or beneficial to wildlife. The contracts to enroll land in the program typically extend for 10 or 15 years.

Wildlife wasn't weighed as highly in 2003 as it was in past years, Schaller said. That's a blow to hunters who benefit from wildlife on the state's CRP land. Pheasant hunting on CRP land is very popular because the property has good habitat for the birds.

The criteria federal officials used to select CRP acres were:

--Water quality benefits from reduced runoff.

--On-farm benefits of reduced erosion.

--Wildlife habitat cover.

--Enduring benefits.

--Air quality benefits.

--Cost.

"Compared to prior general sign-ups... some greenhouse gas issues such as carbon sequestration" were considered more than in the past, according to the FSA Web site.

Nationwide, the USDA enrolled 2 million new acres of CRP land.

About 4.1 million acres were offered in the sign-up period that ended in June.

In South Dakota, 334 of 2,202 offers were accepted. They amounted to 29,628 of a possible 178,350 acres.

With 293,634, Kansas easily had the most acres enrolled in the latest CRP sign-up. The next closest state was Washington with 154,765.

In all, there are more than 1,435,000 acres of CRP land in South Dakota. Of that, 23,521 acres are in contracts that expire this month.

The national average payment per CRP acre is $56.53. In South Dakota, the total is only $33.16. Iowa has the highest per-acre rate at $101. A number of factors are taken into account to determine the rental rate, the main one being soil quality.

In Brown County, the average rental rate is about $48.

Most producers have already been notified by the USDA if their acres have been enrolled in the latest CRP sign-up. Most of those contracts are for 10 years.

There's talk that the USDA will announce another signup period as early as next year.

For more information on the CRP program, visit www.fsa.usda.gov on the Internet cq .

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(c) 2003, American News, Aberdeen, S.D. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.