By SARA HOTTMAN

H&N Staff Reporter

August 5, 2010

     For the first time in two years, Klamath County land owners will have the opportunity to enroll in the Conservation Reserve Program, a federally-funded program to curb soil erosion and water pollution.

   The enrollment period lasts until Aug. 27.

   Eligible land owners may enter into 10- to 15-year contracts with the government to earn rent — an annual payment determined by price per acre — for idling their land. Instead of growing crops or feeding livestock, property owners grow a land cover. Cost-share agreements help pay for the start-up costs.  

   “Sometimes (applicants) have property or land that’s not farmable, a hard piece to get to or a piece that’s away from their other property … something they don’t farm every year,” said Mary Hope, a program technician with the Farm Service Agency on South Sixth Street. “They may apply for the program so they can get a little income off of it.”

   The voluntary, 25-year old program is the government’s way of in centivizing conservation in areas at high risk for soil erosion and water quality issues. Money for the program comes from the Commodity Credit Corporation, run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

   “You don’t want land to wash away or blow away. You want to keep soil protected,” Hope said. “The government pays to plant a cover crop of grasses to hold   it down, hold in moisture. It’s looking at highly erodible lands that need protection.”  

   According to the USDA, nearly 504,000 acres of crop land in Oregon are enrolled in conservation programs. Of that, 76,500 acres are under contracts that will expire in the fall.

   In Klamath County, there were a few farmers and ranchers enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, but their contracts expired two years ago, Hope said.

   Nearly 688,000 acres of land in Oregon will be eligible for this year’s enrollment, according to the USDA. Hope is expecting only about five land owners in Klamath County to apply for the program, enrolling no more than a few hundred acres.

   Most eligible land is in arid climates in the eastern part of the state, where moderate temperatures and little precipitation means soil is highly erodible.