Environmental Program For Farmers

TORRINGTON –– The United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is accepting applications for its Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) through March 5.

EQIP is a voluntary program that helps farmers protect natural resources. It provides both technical assistance and cost-share or incentive payments.

EQIP provides assistance to farmers and ranchers who face threats to soil, water, air, and related natural resources on their land. Funding for EQIP comes from the Commodity Credit Corporation.

Persons engaged in livestock or agricultural production are eligible for the program. Eligible land includes cropland, pasture, private nonindustrial forestland, and other farmlands.

The EQIP program offers technical assistance and up to 75 percent cost sharing to livestock or other agricultural production to farmers who wish to protect, enhance, or restore soil, water, and related natural resources.

Cost sharing is offered for eligible conservation practices that address agricultural waste management systems, grazing management systems, integrated crop management systems, erosion control systems, irrigation management systems, and wetland, riparian, and biodiversity systems.

For information look at the website www.ct.nrcs.usda.gov/ on the internet or call Kathleen Johnson, NRCS district conservationist, at 860-626-8258.