ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY INCENTIVES PROGRAM

What is EQIP?

According to USDA, the “Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides financial and technical assistance to agricultural producers and non-industrial forest managers to address natural resource concerns and deliver environmental benefits such as improved water and air quality, conserved ground and surface water, increased soil health and reduced soil erosion and sedimentation, improved or created wildlife habitat, and mitigation against drought and increasing weather volatility.”

Eligibility & Regulation

In order for participants and/or land to be eligible for EQIP there are certain requirements that must be met. What follows is just a general overview of these rules to give you an idea if you and your land might be eligible. You should contact your local NRCS office to determine if all eligibility requirements are met or what may be needed to ensure eligibility is secured.

  • Owner or operator: you must own the land or be a recorded operator according to FSA to be an eligible producer.

  • HEL compliance: producer cannot have any land listed as Non-Compliant with HEL/Wetland Provisions with FSA.

  • Land eligibility: land must be producing agricultural commodities, livestock, or forest-related products.

  • AGI (annual gross income) restrictions: AGI must not exceed $900,000 for individuals and entities in order to receive payments associated with this program.

  • Good standing with FSA: land must be registered with FSA and records kept up to date.

Signing Up

You can work with your local NRCS Field Staff to put in an application for EQIP. In the application, you will submit the fields you would like to enroll along with the conservation plan you would like to implement. You are only able to submit one application but may include as much land in this application as you would like. Submitted fields will be assessed as a whole for resource concerns no matter how small of an area you are looking to address. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis with mid-November usually being the cut-off for ranking. After this date, applications will be input into an assessment software and evaluated based on a number of features. Factors taken into consideration for ranking change each year and are determined by NRCS guidelines based on how well your current and future management system will address national, state, and local natural resource priorities. There are different resource concern categories that the application be considered for, each being ranked and funded separately. The applications are funded in ranked order beginning with the highest ranked application in each category until the funds are depleted.

IF you receive funding:

If your application is pre-approved for funding, you will receive notice from NRCS and instructions on what to do next. EQIP contract lengths can vary from 1-10 years based on the practices that are needed to address the identified resource concerns. Producers will be required to follow a conservation plan established by NRCS which will include planned practices and associated funding for each year. At least one practice must be scheduled and completed within the first year. After practices have been implemented on the land, NRCS will perform a field visit to ensure that the work meets the established standards and specifications, after which the appropriate funds will be disbursed to reimburse landowners for incurred costs. If your application does not receive funding during the current cycle, you will have to opportunity to defer it to the next year or cancel.