Cover crops, filter strips, grassed waterways, and precision technology. These agricultural conservation measures, among others, have one thing in common:  they’ve all been designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as “Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry (CSAF) Mitigation Activities.” This climate-smart qualification helps determine which practices are eligible for an additional ~$20 billion pot of federal funding enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 for agricultural conservation programs.

Many of the same programs – such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) – also receive mandatory funding through the five-year farm bill. In recent years, CSP, EQIP, and other similar programs have cost taxpayers approximately $5 billion each year, but the IRA significantly increased spending on many of these programs.

Table 1 below includes federal funding levels for USDA agricultural conservation programs included in the farm bill in addition to IRA. The lone exception is the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) which receives funding through the farm bill but did not receive a spending bump in the IRA. CRP is a program that pays landowners to halt crop or production or livestock grazing on their land (typically in a 10-year contract) to obtain grasslands and wetlands conservation, among other priorities.

TCS has provided several recommendations to improve the cost effectiveness and public benefits of agricultural conservation programs to ensure taxpayers are receiving the biggest bang for their buck. As this funding is rolled out USDA’s door, numerous opportunities exist to increase farmers’ and ranchers’ resilience to future challenges, whether weather-related, financial or otherwise. Farmers and ranchers touted the benefits of agricultural conservation for both producers and taxpayers in a recent panel featuring Midwestern farmers, an academic, and other stakeholders. Listen here for their direct perspectives on how conservation practices can improve water quality, reduce soil erosion, allow for innovation, and improve long-term resilience of farmland and farm operations.