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Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) 2009

Financial assistance will be provided for the establishment of native grasses such as Indian grass.

April 17, 2009, Grassland Reserve Program Cut-Off Date Announced

The Grassland Reserve Program (GRP) is a voluntary program offering landowners the opportunity to protect, restore, and enhance grasslands on their property.  Section 2401 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (Pub. L. 107-171) amended the Food Security Act of 1985 to authorize this program.  The Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farm Service Agency and Forest Service are coordinating implementation of GRP, which helps landowners restore and protect grassland, rangeland, pastureland, shrubland and certain other lands and provides assistance for rehabilitating grasslands. The program will conserve vulnerable grasslands from conversion to cropland or other uses and conserve valuable grasslands by helping maintain viable ranching operations.

 “Grasslands provide critical ecological benefits and play a key role in environmental quality, as well as contributing to the economies of many rural areas,” said Alabama NRCS State Conservationist Gary Kobylski. “This voluntary program helps protect valuable grasslands from conversion to other land uses, thus helping to ensure this national resource is available to future generations.”

Grasslands make up the largest land cover on America's private lands. Privately-owned grasslands and shrublands cover more than 525 million acres in the United States. For the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture will direct financial resources and technical expertise to help landowners protect and restore these lands.

GRP Funding

Alabama will receive $729,359 for GRP in 2009. Sixty percent ($437,615) of the funds will be used for easements and the remainder ($291,744) will be used for contracts. There will be two funding pools: 1) MLRA135 and, 2) rest of the state. The funds will be divided equally between the two pools. Offers where the majority of the offered acres are in MLRA 135 will be considered under the MLRA 135 funding pool. Cost-share funds for native warm season grass establishment are available in the amount of $30,000. The cost-share rate is set at 50 percent of average costs (AC) based on the current USDA cost-list. Any funds not used for restoration of native grasses will be used to fund contracts or easements.

Prescreening will be used in servicing and selection of contracts for funding. See the ranking form for details of priorities. Priorities are:

  1. Grassland offers with a minimum of 10 acres native warm season grasses, planned or existing, combined with a Prescribed Grazing (Prescribed Grazing Standard 528) system (planned or existing).
  2. Grassland offers with a Prescribed Grazing (Prescribed Grazing Standard 528) system already being practiced.
  3. Other grasslands used for grazing that do not meet the previous priorities. This includes CRP grass practices (CP1, 2, or 10) that are in the last year of the contract and suitable for grazing.
  4. Non grazing land, grassland offers.

There is not a minimum acreage for applications under this sign-up.

The applications for the first priority will be completely funded according to their rankings before funding applications from the next priority. If needed, the applications in the third and fourth or fifth priorities will then be ranked and funded accordingly.

GRP Implementation Schedule

Date Action
April 17, 2009 End of first batching period
May 15, 2009 All ranking and summary spreadsheet information is completed and submitted to state office
May 22, 2009 Release of contracts for approval
July 15, 2009 Plans and contracts fully completed

GRP Status Reviews

Status review will be conducted yearly for entire length of the contracts or easements. If problems are identified, NRCS staff will work with GRP participant to resolve the issue within six months. If after reasonable efforts to resolve the issue have failed, FSA will be notified of non-compliance and program payments should be terminated until such time that non-compliance issues are resolved.

Additional Information

The following documents are provided in  Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Word.

GRP Conservation Easement Deed  NRCS-CPA-255 (.pdf, 37 KB)
GRP 2009 Handbook (Doc, 447 KB)
GRP 2009 Ranking Information (Excel, 82 KB)

Posters for Field Office to Print
GRP Poster (11x17) (.pdf, 1.7 MB)
GRP Poster (8 1/2 x 11) (.pdf, 1.7 MB)

2005 Archive

National NRCS Grassland Reserve Program (will open in new window)

Contact

For information or questions regarding the Grassland Reserve Program in Alabama, contact Eddie Jolley
USDA–NRCS, Conservation Agronomist
Phone: (334) 887-4564,
E-mail: Eddie.Jolley@al.usda.gov

Last Modified: 07/15/2009


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