Conservation Stewardship Program

Your Stewardship Goals. Our Assistance.

Have you ever looked across your property and thought about some land management goals you would like to take to the next level? Maybe we can help.

No one knows more about your land than you do, and no one knows more about conservation than we do. Together we can develop a plan tailored to your land and your goals to help you increase productivity and protect the value of your land.

Our Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) helps you build on your existing conservation efforts while strengthening your operation. Whether you are looking to improve grazing conditions, increases crop yields, or develop wildlife habitat, we can custom design a CSP plan to help you meet those goals.  We can help you schedule timely planting of cover crops, develop a grazing plan that will improve your forage base, implement no-till to reduce erosion or manage forested areas in a way that benefits wildlife habitat.  If you are already taking steps to improve the condition of the land, chances are CSP can help you find new ways to meet your goals.

Publications & Documents

• CSP What's New
• CSP Information Sheet
• CSP Payment Limitations

Sustainable Production

CSP is for working lands. It is the largest conservation program in the United States with 70 million acres of productive agricultural and forest land enrolled in CSP. Thousands of people have made the choice to voluntarily enroll in the program because it helps them enhance natural resources and improve their business operation.

Some of the benefits include:

• Improved cattle gains per acre
• Increased crop yields
• Decreased inputs
• Wildlife population improvements
• Better resilience to weather extremes

Through CSP, we can help build your business while implementing conservation practices that help ensure the sustainability of your entire operation. Good land stewardship not only conserves the natural resources on your farm, ranch or forest, it also provides multiple benefits to local communities, including better water and air quality and wildlife habitat, as well as food and fiber. Click on any of the land use images below to view the CSP enhancements.

For information on available enhancement activities for South Dakota, see the Activity List for Participants in South Dakota (PDF coming soon). For detailed information on implementation criteria and documentation requirements of specific enhancements, please visit the National CSP website where complete list of enhancements and the criteria for implementation may be found.

Contact

For further information and assistance, contact your local NRCS Field Service Center.

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CSP Prior Year Information

The CSP encourages land stewards to improve their conservation performance by installing and adopting additional activities, and improving, maintaining, and managing existing activities on agricultural land and nonindustrial private forest land.  The NRCS will make CSP available nationwide on a continuous application basis.

Application Deadline

CSP applications are accepted throughout the year at your local USDA Service Center.

Eligibility

The CSP is available on Tribal and private agricultural lands, as well as nonindustrial private forest lands statewide.  Individual producers, legal entities, corporations, and Indian Tribes may be eligible for the program.  Eligible lands include cropland, grassland, prairie land, improved pastureland, rangeland, nonindustrial private forest land, and agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian Tribe.

Applicants must:

• Be the operator in the USDA farm records management system for the eligible land being offered for enrollment;
• Have effective control of the land for the term of the proposed contract;
• Include the eligible land on an applicants entire agricultural operation;
• Be in compliance with the highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions and adjusted gross income.

Applying for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) South Dakota FY2016 (PDF; 116 KB)
Common Enhancement Activities of the CSP For Cropland in South Dakota (SD-FS-71) (PDF; 241 KB)
Common Enhancement Activities of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) - Grassland (SD-FS-72) (PDF; 301 KB)
Producer Self-Screening Checklist

Benefits

The CSP payments will compensate producers for:

• Installing and adopting additional conservation activities;
• Improving, maintaining, and managing conservation activities in place at the time the contract offer is accepted by the Secretary;
• Adopting resource-conserving crop rotation to achieve beneficial crop rotations;
• Engaging in activities related to on-farm conservation research and demonstration activities, and pilot testing of new technologies or innovative conservation practices.

South Dakota Resource Concerns and Ranking Areas

Through CSP, applicants will be able to address identified state resource concerns on working lands.  Due to the great variation in resource conditions, farming and ranching management, and climatic differences, the states agricultural land has been divided into three ranking areas and non-industrial private forestland is a single statewide ranking area.

Applicants with agricultural land applications will be ranked for the area in which the majority of their agricultural operation is located. Applicants with non-industrial private forestland will be ranked on a statewide basis.  Beginning Farmers/Ranchers and Historically Underserved applicants may choose to compete in the general pool or pools specifically available to them.

The Landscape Conservation Initiative application deadline is March 31, 2016. 

The two LCIs for SD are the Ogallala Aquifer Initiative (OAI) and the Sage Grouse Initiative (SGI)

The OAI encourages agricultural producers to address priority resource concerns, for water quantity and water quality issues in the OAI, in a comprehensive manner by undertaking additional conservation activities; and improving, maintaining, and managing existing conservation activities.

The SGI encourages agricultural producers to address priority resource concerns, such as Sage Grouse habitat, in a comprehensive manner by undertaking additional conservation activities; and improving, maintaining, and managing existing conservation activities.

Target acres for OAI are 4,000 and target acres for SGI are 40,000.

New enhancements for the SGI:

ANM57-Removal of all threats to sensitive wildlife species on the operation

ANM58-Reduction of attractants to human-subsidized predators in sensitive wildlife species habitat

ANM59-Grazing management to improve Sage Grouse habitat

ANM60-Grouse friendly fencing

New enhancements for the OAI:

WQT09-High level or advanced irrigation water management

WQT10-Center pivot irrigation system end gun removal

WQT11-Low energy precision application (LEPA) irrigation

CSP-OAI Prescreening Questionnaire

CSP-SGI Prescreening Questionnaire

Enhancement Activity Job Sheets

"Enhancement" means a type of conservation activity used to treat natural resources and improve conservation performance.  Enhancements are installed at a level of management intensity that exceeds the sustainable level for a given resource concern, and those directly related to a practice standard are applied in a manner that exceeds the minimum treatment requirements of the standard. 

 South Dakota 2015 CSP Enhancement Activity Job Sheets

Conservation Stewardship Program's Contribution to Organic Transitioning

• The Organic Crosswalk (PDF; 60 KB)

South Dakota Resource Conserving Crops

A supplemental payment is available to participants who adopt a resource conserving crop rotation.  Resource conserving crop rotation means a crop rotation that includes at least one resource conserving crop, and reduces wind and water erosion, increases soil organic matter, improves soil fertility and tilth, interrupts pest cycles, reduces depletion of soil moisture or reduces the need for irrigation.  Job Sheet CCR99 provides a description of a resource conserving crop rotation.  Supplemental information is available for South Dakota.

South Dakota Resource-Conserving Crops List (PDF; 14.7 KB)

Conservation Stewardship Program
Success for South Dakota (fact sheet; pdf; 1.1 MB)

Archived CSP Information

FY-2014 Ranking Period 1 Job Sheets (PDF)

2013 South Dakota Enhancements List (DOCX; 166KB)

2013 Activity List for Participants (PDF; 112 KB)

FY 2013 Ranking Period One Job Sheets

FY 2012 Ranking Period One Job Sheets

2012 State Enhancements

FY 2011 Ranking Period One Job Sheets

2011 SD Enhancement Supplement

FY 2010 Ranking Period Two Job Sheets

2010-2 SD Enhancement Supplement

FY 2010 Ranking Period One Job Sheets

2010-1 SD Enhancement Supplement 

National CSP Website

Please contact Jessica Michalski at (605) 532-3686 for further information.