According to the USDA numbers 502,000 CRP acres expired this year. But 450,000 acres were accepted for re-enrollment or sign up. Kansas PF/QF Facebook posted this evening that cattle grazing in some Gove Co CRP is helping the bird habitat greatly. The drought map has receded nicely in much of the state over the summer. Are things really that dire or are some of the old standbys simply falling out of the programs and guys are disappointed??
Kansas BHA podcast #20 with the WIHA director Wes Sowards is a great reference as to what landowner/producers can and can’t do. Some great info about the direction of the program. Clears up many of the WIHA misconceptions. One of the hosts gets a little bent about some habitat destruction on enrolled parcels as well. I don’t like to see it anymore than the rest, but how many of you actually believe a producer heads into a year hoping to have to graze/hay CRP ground or break a WIHA contract? I’ve been around the ag community most of my life and don’t think those are usually on the spring planning radar.
At the end of the day we’re lucky anyone signs up in the program. To have a consistent 1,000,000+ acres to play on is pretty damn awesome. Ask Oklahoma or Nebraska or E Colorado how their publicly accessible private lands program is going. If a few acres aren’t what you’re looking for, keep driving.