cost-share programs

Cost-share programs provide farmers and ranchers with the opportunity to implement conservation practices on their land. The various programs can provide financial and technical assistance to help landowners meet environmental challenges on private property. The majority of the programs listed below are available through the Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA), though there are some state programs also available.

These resources have been compiled from various resources and agencies and are provided here for educational purposes only. Please if you find information that needs to be updated, broken links, or if you have an additional resource you feel is pertinent.

• Summary of NRCS Conservation Programs - Natural Resources Conservation Service
  • Conservation Reserve Program
    
  • Conservation Security Program
  • Environmental Quality Incentives Program
  • Grassland Reserve Program
  • Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program
  • Wetlands Reserve Program
• Mississippi Landowner Incentive Program - Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. "The Landowner Incentive Program (LIP) is a new initiative that provides state wildlife agencies with funds to enhance, restore, and protect imperiled habitats and benefit at-risk wildlife species on private lands. Within Mississippi, the longleaf pine region of the southeast, blackland prairie of the northeast and central sections, and bottomland hardwood areas of the Delta were chosen as those of greatest conservation need. Mississippi's LIP will confer funds to landowners within these regions to cost-share practices such as site preparation, prescribed burning, tree and native warm-season grass plantings, and herbicide applications. Biologists from the MDWFP and Wildlife Mississippi will provide technical guidance to all interested landowners. Potential projects will be reviewed and ranked by a team of biologists from both entities to determine eligibility for funding. "

  AUDIO CLIPS: Mississippi State University Extension Service Better Farming Radio Program with Tim Allison: Quail ecologist Wes Burger talks about how row-crop farmers can take advantage of programs to turn unprofitable field borders into money-making quail habitat. REAL | MP3

• "Making Federal Farm Programs Work for You" by Wes and Leslie Burger, Wildlife Trends Volume 5, Issue 3, May/June 2005
• Creating Early Successional Habitat Through Federal Farm Programs: An Objective-driven Approach with Case Studies - U.S.D.A. Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Conservation Reserve Program mid-contract management: Practices for Wildlife Habitat Improvement in Mississippi - Mississippi State University and cooperators. Those enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program can participate in mid-contract management activities to improve wildlife habitat that are cost-shared. In grasslands, these practices include prescribed fire, light strip-disking, interseeding legumes in introduced grass stands, and herbicidal control of invasive vegetation. In forests, these practices include prescribed fire or light disking, herbicidal control of invasive woody vegetation in pine stands, and herbicidal control of invasive exotic vegetation in pine and hardwood stands. This publication covers management techniques that are cost-shared through CRP in detail.
• Restoring Bobwhite Quail Habitat - MDWFP, MS Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Delta Wildlife Inc., MSU Forest and Wildlife Research Center. This brochure talks about the conservation practice CP33: Habitat buffers for upland birds.