About the Conservation Reserve Program

CRP celebrated its 36-year anniversary in December, 2021. CRP is a land conservation, Farm Bill program administered by the Farm Service Agency (FSA). This program provides a mix of conservation and economic benefits across the United States.

CRP was originally intended primarily to control soil erosion and potentially stabilize commodity prices by taking marginal lands out of production. This program has evolved over the years, providing a variety of other conservation and economic benefits from coast to coast.

CRP has—

• Prevented more than 9 billion tons of soil from eroding—enough soil to fill 600 million dump trucks.
• Reduced nitrogen and phosphorous runoff relative to annually tilled cropland by 95 and 85 percent respectively.
• Sequestered an annual average of 49 million tons of greenhouse gases—equal to taking 9 million cars off the road.
• Created more than 3 million acres of restored wetlands while protecting more than 175,000 stream miles with riparian forest and grass buffers—enough to go around the world 7 times.
• Benefited bees and other pollinators and increased populations of ducks, pheasants, turkeys, bobwhite quails, prairie chickens, grasshopper sparrows, and many other birds.

To learn more, visit the Conservation Reserve Program. Links to an external site.