Why a Watershed Approach is being Used

CSP has been continuously under some form of payment cap since January of 2003 (the first year Congressional appropriators funded CSP). The decision by Congress to cap total expenditures for CSP at $6.037 billion (between FY-2005 and FY-2014) exemplifies the wisdom of the Administration’s watershed approach – which can adapt to a constantly changing funding picture for CSP.

Watersheds are nature’s boundaries. They are a common sense way to group together producers’ success on resource issues. They will reflect the environmental progress we expect from CSP in ways we couldn’t expect from working along county or state lines.

Everyone lives in a watershed and, using the rotation approach, within the next eight years, every farmer and rancher will have an opportunity to participate in the program. No qualifying producer will be left out.

By law, NRCS cannot incur technical assistance costs in excess of 15 percent of the funds expended in that fiscal year for CSP. Given this modest service funding, we must focus and limit the land and landowners that our conservationists can serve at one time. Watersheds provide that focus.

A watershed rotation reduces the administrative burden on applicants while it reduces the technical assistance costs associated with NRCS and its technical service providers processing a large number of applications that cannot be funded. Because everyone lives in a watershed, and because each year producers in approximately one eighth of the nation’s 2,119 watersheds will be eligible for the sign-up, everyone will have the opportunity to participate over the eight-year period.

For producers in a selected watershed, this approach means better service when applying. For producers not yet in a selected watershed, it means time to get ready with access to other Farm Bill programs and access to technical service from personnel unencumbered by CSP responsibilities. The CSP self-assessment exercise will allow producers to see where they stand and allow for management concerns to be addressed.

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