Alabama Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) 2006

Program Description

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is a USDA program that provides cost-sharing assistance to landowners/users to address significant natural resource concerns on agricultural lands. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) manages EQIP with input from the State Technical Committee and assistance from the Farm Service Agency (FSA), Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD), and FSA County Committees.

SWCDs operate through local work groups to provide leadership to identify county resource concerns based on watershed assessments, public involvement, and "optimize environmental benefits."

EQIP funds are awarded to landowners/users who agree to implement conservation/environmental practices and systems through a contracting process. Practices and plans for EQIP are to treat the land to a sustainable level to address the primary national, state, and county resource concerns.

This voluntary conservation program addresses serious threats to soil, water, and related natural resources through contracts. In FY 2005, there were 1,601 conservation plans/contracts prepared. These contracts provided over $14,600,000 for Alabama farms. Funding provided by the 2002 Farm Bill should be adequate to fund the majority of the requests. EQIP provides geographically targeted technical, financial, and educational assistance to maximize environmental benefits.

You can apply for an EQIP contract at your local USDA Service Center. Applications are ranked and selected for funding in order to optimize environmental benefits.  Contact the local Service Center for further guidelines and details of the program.

Signup and Application Information

EQIP in Alabama will be implemented with three goals in mind:

• To address the most severe resource concerns within the state through prudent and judicious use of EQIP funds
• To place decisions and implementation responsibilities at the lowest level possible by involving locally led partners in the decision making process
• To provide oversight and program management that is consistent with accomplishing national EQIP goals and objectives

Alabama will use a five-tier approach for funding EQIP. Total initial allocation for Alabama for FY 2006 is about $10,200,000.

• A base allocation of 38.5 percent will be distributed equally to the 67 counties to maintain a base conservation program to treat the resource concerns in each county.
• A formula that computes a county’s percentage of the state’s resource concerns that include measures of erosion, water quality, number of animals within a county, grazing lands, and lands with the potential to impact at-risk species will be used to distribute 42.4 percent of the state allocation.
• Four state-wide concerns will be allocated 19.1 percent of the state allocation.
• An allocation of $135,124 will be used for a special Ground and Surface Water Conservation project.
• A small percentage of the funds will be held for cost-overruns. Funds not obligated by March 15th will be released to counties with unfunded EQIP applications on hand.

Each county in Alabama will operate as an EQIP pool area. The local work group will advise NRCS on implementation of the regular EQIP within that county. Each county will select the practices from the list of state approved EQIP practices that will be offered within the county and the cost-share percentage for that county if less than the percentage approved at the state level.

A nationally developed ranking tool will be used to rank applications for funding. The local workgroup will advise NRCS on county resource ranking priorities.  Copies of ranking tools and cost-lists can be obtained from the local field office.

Additional information is available at: http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/programs/eqip/. 

2007 Alabama Special Projects

• Alabama Poultry Litter Distribution Project

• Alabama Ground and Surface Water Conservation Project

• Alabama Invasive Plants Management Project

• Limited Resource Farms/Limited Resource Small Scale Farmer Initiative Project

EQIP Conservation Practice, Signup, and Ranking Documents

• 2006 County EQIP Signup Information

• 2005 County EQIP Signup Information (archive only)

• 2004 County EQIP Signup Information (archive only)

Additional EQIP Resources

• National NRCS EQIP Information 

 These documents require Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Excel.

Conservation Program Application - CCC1200 (330 KB)
State Practices and Restrictions (121 KB)
State Cost-Share Rates (115 KB)

EQIP Ranking Criteria for Alabama (County Allocation) (34 KB)
Limited Resource/Small Farmer Statewide Ranking Criteria (32 KB)

Success Stories and News Releases

Some of these documents require Adobe Acrobat.

USDA Offers Energy Cost Offset For Completion Of EQIP Practices (1-24-06) HTML  NEW!
Wyers Takes Advantage of the EQIP Program (Wyers, Walker Co), Poultry and Egg 11/05
Growing a Farm and Passing on a Heritage (Jones, Autauga Co) Cooperative Farming News 7/05
Water for Grazing System (Hendrix, Winston Co), Cooperative Farming News 4/05
Is it Worth It?--You Betcha! (Lowery, Russell Co), Cooperative Farming News 3/05
Good for Man and Good for the Cows (Johnson, Russell Co), Cooperative Farming News, 11/04
EQIP Funds Improve Water Quality Plus Quantity for Livestock (Manring, Covington Co), Cooperative Farming News 4/04; Land and Water 5-6/04; Forage Leader 8/04
New Job, Same Principles (Clark, Lawrence Co), Cooperative Farming News 2/05
Innovative Solutions to Problems (Hooper, Winston Co), Cooperative Farming News 10/04
Landowner Accomplishes Goals with EQIP Assistance in Lee County (239 KB)
EQIP Helps Covington County Farmer (143 KB)
EQIP Helps Walker County Landowner (187 KB)
Thirsty Animals (Mullican, Lawrence Co), not published   
A Love and a Living (Hay, Talladega Co), not published

Contact Information

Contact Bill Hughes, USDA–NRCS, Acting Assistant State Conservationist for Programs, for information or questions regarding EQIP in Alabama, phone: (334) 887-4520, e-mail: bill.hughes@al.usda.gov.

Last Modified: 09/17/2007

<Back to Cost-Share Programs