Alabama Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) 2008

The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is a USDA program that provides payments to participants to address significant natural resource concerns on agricultural lands.

Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD) 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 2007, there were 1,265 conservation plans/contracts prepared. These contracts provided over $12,392,473 for Alabama farms. 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. Batching dates may be announced as needed to rank and prioritize any new or unfunded application. 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

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 payment rates are the same for the county as the state.

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 practice payment schedule can be obtained from the local field office.

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

2008 Alabama Resource Concerns

• Ground and Surface Water Conservation
• Alabama Invasive Species Control
• Limited Resource Farms
• Forest Health Initiative
• Conservation Innovation Grant

EQIP Conservation Practice, Signup, and Ranking Documents

• 2008 County EQIP Signup Information 
• Archives
  • 2007 EQIP Information
  • 2006 EQIP Information
  • 2005 EQIP Information
  • 2004 EQIP Information

Additional EQIP Resources

• National NRCS EQIP Information 

 These documents may require Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Excel.

Alabama EQIP Practice and Payment Schedule 2008 (PDF)
Appendix to Form NRCS-CPA-1202: Conservation Program Contract  (PDF) (National NRCS-will open in new window)
Conservation Program Application - NRCS-CPA-1200 (PDF, 39 KB)

Success Stories and News Releases

Some of these documents require Adobe Acrobat.

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

Contact Information

Contact Steve Musser, USDA–NRCS, Assistant State Conservationist for Programs, for information or questions regarding EQIP in Alabama, phone: (334) 887-4503, e-mail: steve.musser@al.usda.gov.

Last Modified: 06/09/2008

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