Farm Bill Programs: Conservation Partnerships
We have written before how public access to natural space can be a development asset for communities. The 2008 Farm Bill includes a conservation provision, the Cooperative Conservation Partnerships Initiative (CCPI), that can support both conservation and rural community development by encouraging farmers and ranchers to work together to solve natural resource concerns on a local, state or regional scale.
The Natural Resource Conservation Service will administer the CCPI. For this initiative, the farm bill sets aside six percent of the funds from the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP). The concept behind CCPI is to provide flexibility in how these programs are used to better fit local needs and objectives for a special collaborative project.
Examples of how we see this program working can be found right here in our home state of Nebraska. Private landowners in Garden and Loup counties are working together to build new nature-based businesses and strengthen existing ones while improving the management of prairie grasslands for livestock and wildlife.
Neighboring ranchers will work together to create a wildlife management area that can be promoted for nature-based activities and services. The project will also help participating ranchers to create other business and marketing opportunities for grass-fed livestock from their own livestock operations. Together they will establish conservation goals and collectively share management responsibility for meeting the goals, while creating unique, nature-based economic development to benefit their communities.
Another example includes our hometown of Lyons, where we would like to engage landowners from this community and from the surrounding communities of Bancroft and Oakland to restore the old channel of a creek that was dredged to make it a straight shot down the valley in 1914. The goal is to restore that natural resource and to create a trail for hiking, bird watching and other wildlife viewing. The communities could promote access to this natural space as part of their economic development plan.
We want to help you and your community benefit from the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative as well. We’ll keep you posted on when this provision is rolled out and made available by the Natural Resource Conservation Service, so stay tuned!
Contact: Traci Bruckner, tracib@cfra.org or 402.687.2103 x 1016 for more information.
The Natural Resource Conservation Service will administer the CCPI. For this initiative, the farm bill sets aside six percent of the funds from the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP). The concept behind CCPI is to provide flexibility in how these programs are used to better fit local needs and objectives for a special collaborative project.
Examples of how we see this program working can be found right here in our home state of Nebraska. Private landowners in Garden and Loup counties are working together to build new nature-based businesses and strengthen existing ones while improving the management of prairie grasslands for livestock and wildlife.
Neighboring ranchers will work together to create a wildlife management area that can be promoted for nature-based activities and services. The project will also help participating ranchers to create other business and marketing opportunities for grass-fed livestock from their own livestock operations. Together they will establish conservation goals and collectively share management responsibility for meeting the goals, while creating unique, nature-based economic development to benefit their communities.
Another example includes our hometown of Lyons, where we would like to engage landowners from this community and from the surrounding communities of Bancroft and Oakland to restore the old channel of a creek that was dredged to make it a straight shot down the valley in 1914. The goal is to restore that natural resource and to create a trail for hiking, bird watching and other wildlife viewing. The communities could promote access to this natural space as part of their economic development plan.
We want to help you and your community benefit from the Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative as well. We’ll keep you posted on when this provision is rolled out and made available by the Natural Resource Conservation Service, so stay tuned!
Contact: Traci Bruckner, tracib@cfra.org or 402.687.2103 x 1016 for more information.
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