ISA outlines NRCS programs

HEYWORTH, Ill. — Despite the fluctuation in available funding, farmers are still encouraged to utilize the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“It’s so important to utilize NRCS, even when things fluctuate in and out of being really good or really bad in terms of how much funding or resources are available,” said Darby Danzl, Illinois Soybean Association regional technical agronomist.

“It’s still important to reach out and talk to them because when things come back and there’s more money available for these programs we want to make sure that Illinois is on the map of places that should receive that funding, so when it’s available Illinois farmers have access to it.”

Danzl was among the speakers for the recent Conservation Walk that was to be held at ISA’s Agronomy Farm, but rain forced it indoors.

Outreach Partnership

ISA entered into a partnership with NRCS in early 2025 to promote on-farm conservation practices that contribute to environmental benefits such as improving soil health, reducing soil erosion, suppressing excessive weed pressure, improving nutrient uptake efficiency and optimizing water management.

The partnership included ISA matching a $750,000 NRCS grant that would fund increased education and adoption of conservation practices to help increase carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gases.

“We don’t want to just promote the programs available through NRCS — we also want to help support what goes behind making those practices really work. How can they be economically feasible? How can I still attain high fields while still protecting the soils?” Danzl said.

Along with the financial assistance for programs, NRCS also offers technical assistance and equipment rentals.

“If you’re a producer who does not currently cover crop, having equipment available to you could be a big barrier to adoption of these types of practices,” Danzl said.

“NRCS offices do have drills available for seeding, depending on the office or county that you were located in. But you’re also not limited to only go to the county that you reside in or that you farm in.

“So, just keep in mind if your specific county office does not have it available, reach out to other nearby county offices because they also might offer this service to you at a pretty reasonable rate, as well.”

On the technical assistance side, NRCS staff offers suggestions or plans on how to adopt and integrate conservation practices.

“Oftentimes there’s a Soil and Water Conservation District that works in the same office as NRCS, and a lot of time SWCD will also offer the opportunity to purchase seed for you. They can help find a seed dealer for you, help you purchase that seed and actually have it shipped to the NRCS office where you pick up just in case you’re not familiar with where to get the certain cover seed that you’re looking for,” Danzl said.

The most popular NRCS programs with financial and technical assistance are the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program.

EQIP provides technical and financial assistance to help producers address natural resource concerns like soil quality, rangeland health, irrigation efficiency, nutrient management and forest quality on working lands, including cropland, rangeland, pasture and nonindustrial private forest land.

Farmers, ranchers and forest landowners who own or rent agricultural land are eligible.

“CSP is NRCS’s most popular program and a lot of farmers will want to look into it as an option because a lot of farmers, whether they realize or not, are doing some kind of conservation on their land. CSP is essentially designed to help producers to take that conservation, whatever it may be, to the next level,” Danzl said.

“For example, if you’re someone who does minimal tillage and you want to try no-till, or if you do one species of cover crops and you want to do three or four, this is more so the type of program that you’re going to want to look at enrolling in.”

She noted ISA’s Agronomy Farm near Heyworth includes in-field research with various cover crops, no-till, pollinator strip and other practices that both EQIP and CSP offer financial and technical assistance for farmers to implement.

Fed Funding Flux

Among of the issues NRCS employees deal with is the funding for these program often fluctuate.

“One year there may be a lot of money for these programs and then the next year there’s a limited amount. That’s the situation that NRCS employees and farmers are dealing with right now,” Danzl said.

“We just went through a period of time between 2023 and 2024, where there was almost $20 billion dollars going to NRCS financial assistance programs nationwide.

“At the time, producers were going into the office and seeking out financial assistance, a lot of the time their applications would be funded just because there was so much funding available for those producers at the time.

“In 2025, we had an administration change and a lot of the funding was reevaluated for these types of programs. This is very common in a federal position. When you have a change in whatever position, it’s going to change where the scale goes on certain types of programs.

“So, a lot of the funding that was producer-available were on pause and they reevaluated to see how much money would still be available for these kinds of programs.”

There is funding available through the new Regenerative Pilot Program that designated $400 million for EQIP and $300 million for CSP.

The program is “a farmer first, outcomes-based approach to conservation designed to return the agency to its core mission — helping people help the land,” according to NRCS.

Competitive

For those whose program applications were denied, Danzl said it’s important to understand why that happened.

“Funding pools are competitive. Basically when you submit an application for CSP or EQIP, you’re put into a pool with all the other farmers who are submitting applications for that same funding pool. The money in these funding pools get split out by state and then in-state it’s split by program,” she said.

“In those programs, it’s split out again by the land type that you’re submitting the application for. For example, if you’re submitting an application for CSP and the land you want to fund it for is cropland, all of the applications submitting under those categories are going to be competing against each other. That would be a different pool of money than EQIP cropland or CSP pasture, for example.”

Applications are ranked on a point-based system. Points are determined from a couple different factors.

“There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes things that goes into ranking applications, but a lot of it will have to do with your current management practices on your farm, as well as what you want to do,” Danzl said.

“What are the practices that you want to adopt for this application? What are you seeking funding for? And how are those proposed practices going to address the resource concerns of your land?

“Because, essentially, a lot of what NRCS is looking to see is how can we improve the quality of the landscape.”

Higher Ranking

During the application consideration process, requests are ranked, combined with less funding available for the programs.

In order to improve one’s program application rank, Danzl’s recommendations included choosing practices that are going to address multiple resource concerns.

“NRCS offices get a list of research concerns and they’re ranked by priority. A couple examples that are high on the list are water quality and soil health. So, if you really want to have an application that gets funded, make sure the practices you want to adopt check both those boxes. If they do, they’re going to rank a little bit higher and you’re going to have a higher chance of receiving funding,” she said.

“Unfortunately, the flip side, this usually involves that the producer is required to adopt more than one practice. A lot of the times producers starting out trying new practices don’t necessarily want to go full throttle and probably shouldn’t in general.

“If it’s your first time trying to cover crops, you don’t necessarily want to put them out on every acre you farm. That just not going to work.”

Patience

Federal budget cuts to NRCS also impacts staffing.

“NRCS staff are available at the county level to assist, but also keep in mind that staff are currently limited in terms of how many staff are available, as well as the funding that is currently available to producers. So, be patient with them. It’s OK to be frustrated because they’re probably frustrated for the same reasons that you are,” Danzl said.

“Don’t get upset with your local county office because a lot of times it’s out of their control. Just give them a little bit of grace in that sense and understand that they do want to help you and sometimes they just don’t have the capacity.”