The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is offering a 60-day comment period for a rule for the improvement of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), one of USDA’s largest conservation programs.
“This interim final rule provides a roadmap to help streamline and simplify EQIP for farmers and ranchers,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a USDA news release.
The rule is available in the Federal Register beginning today. Public comments will be accepted through Feb. 10, 2015 at regulations.gov or by mail.
EQIP has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of agricultural producers and forest landowners since its launch in 1997. From that time through 2014, USDA has invested in 596,481 contracts for a total of nearly $11 billion on nearly 232 million acres, nationwide.