U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced an investment of over $325 million in 42 projects to help farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners boost their operations and conserve natural resources across the nation through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).
“The Trump USDA is committed to ensuring our farmers have the necessary tools to grow our food, and today's announcement ensures a longer and more prosperous future for our American farmlands,” said Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. “The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) pairs private investment with federal funds to deliver better results. Recently, we’ve taken steps to improve RCPP to reduce red tape and increase flexibility to better empower local partners to conserve natural resources while helping American farmers prosper."
“Iowa’s popular Cattle and Conservation Working Lands Program demonstrates that we can improve water quality, rebuild the U.S. cattle herd and make the most of every acre of our valuable farmland,” said Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig. “The Iowa Working Lands Program started out as a pilot project in Taylor County in 2016, and has since grown into a very successful conservation program in Iowa, while creating a model for other states. This RCPP gives us the flexibility to support infrastructure improvements and expand the program to serve livestock producers in more Iowa counties.”
Through RCPP, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) works with partners to fund solutions to natural resource challenges on agricultural land. For example, today in Iowa, Secretary Rollins met with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to announce a project across western and central Iowa that integrates cover crops, forage and biomass plantings, watering systems, and other practices to support producers and working lands health. This partnership project will result in planting over 300,000 acres of cover crops and delivering reductions of roughly 3.3 million pounds of nitrogen, 336,000 pounds of phosphorus, and 1 million tons of soil loss, while strengthening grazing systems and producer profitability.
Source : usda.gov