§3831c Pilot Programs

Summary

The Secretary must create two pilot programs that let landowners enroll land in the Conservation Reserve Program under special contracts. The first program, called CLEAR 30, offers 30-year contracts only for land coming off certain expired contracts that ended on or after December 20, 2018 and that were enrolled for clean lakes, estuaries, and rivers priorities. Owners of those expired contracts can choose not to reenroll, try to reenroll under the old terms, or enroll under a CLEAR 30 contract. CLEAR 30 requires a conservation plan, a promise to follow the contract, and a temporary pause of the land’s base history. It allows necessary repairs and control of public access, bans changing wildlife habitat or routine spraying or mowing unless the Secretary allows it for weed or pest control or wildlife needs, and forbids nearby actions that would harm the land’s conservation value. The owner may have to pay back program money with interest if they break the rules. Compatible uses like hunting, fishing, managed timber, or occasional haying or grazing are allowed if the plan permits. Payments are 30 yearly cash payments equal to the amount that would apply under the clean lakes priority at section 3831(d)(3), paid as early as possible each fiscal year, and can be handled fairly if an owner dies or cannot receive them. The Secretary will help owners and may hire or work with governments, tribes, nonprofits, or private groups to manage the land and must write a conservation plan for each CLEAR 30 acre. The second pilot is a voluntary soil health and income protection program for certain cropland in States in the prairie pothole region. Eligible land must have a recent cropping history for the past three years, be picked by the owner, be verified as less productive than other land on the farm, and must not have been in a CRP contract in the previous three crop years. Enrollment was open through December 31, 2020. Contracts (3, 4, or 5 years) require planting a low-cost perennial cover chosen by the State conservationist; owners normally pay planting costs; the annual rental payment equals 50 percent of the county average rental rate under section 3834(d). No more than 15 percent of a farm’s eligible land can join, and across the program not more than 50,000 acres may enroll. Owners may harvest seed, hay, or graze outside the county’s primary nesting season under conditions to protect soil and wildlife; seed harvest makes the land ineligible for Federal crop insurance and cuts the rental payment by 25 percent. Beginning, limited-resource, socially disadvantaged, or veteran farmers get cost-sharing (50/50 for establishment using Commodity Credit Corporation funds) and a higher rental rate of 75 percent of the county average. The Secretary or the owner can end contracts early under set rules, and the Secretary must send annual reports to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees describing enrolled acres, estimated conservation value, and estimated savings.