HomeBusiness/Farm State FSA adjusts burning specs for land enrolled in CRP practice
State FSA adjusts burning specs for land enrolled in CRP practice
Written by Free Press
Wednesday, 09 April 2008
Kansas Farm Service Agency last week announced adjustments to the burning specifications for land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program practice CP25-Rare and Declining Habitat.
CRP is a voluntary program that converts cropland to conservation covers through 10- to 15-year contracts.
The CP25 maintenance burn requirement was developed in the 1990s with recommendation by the Kansas Technical Committee and approval by the Kansas FSA State Committee, according to Bill R. Fuller, state executive director of the Kansas Farm Service Agency. It was recognized that burning benefits the development of native grasslands and improves the habitat for wildlife.
“Environmental conditions were significantly different then than now,” Fuller said. “Many regions of the state are currently experiencing a multi-year drought. There has been a massive accumulation of vegetative fuel over the years in some areas. Homes and other development have taken place on or near CRP lands.
“This is a sampling of legitimate reasons why exemptions and alternatives to the burning requirement should be occasionally allowed.”
CRP participants enrolled in this voluntary practice agreed to these maintenance burn requirements in their contract. Planning, education, training and safety by CRP participants must be a priority when burning is conducted on CRP acreage.
Burning workshops, training programs, and fostering burning associations will be available with the cooperation and expertise of the Extension Service, Rural Fire Departments, Kansas Forest Service, and Natural Resource Conservation Service.
“Because the local FSA county committee is better informed of local conditions to provide consistent and equitable administration of burning requirements, they will have full authority to grant individual burning exemptions to CRP participants,” Fuller said.
Occasional exemptions during the final year of the CRP contract may be granted by the local county committee when a particular burn would create a significant safety hazard that meets the following conditions.
Conditions due to significant drought, high winds, excessive temperatures or low humidity that have prevented completing the prescribed burn.
Close proximity to homes, businesses, housing developments, interstate highways, farmsteads, windbreaks and fuel facilities, especially those constructed after the beginning of the CRP contract.
Create conditions susceptible to wind erosion following the burn in consultation with NRCS.
Any time the burn would violate state law or county ordinance during the contract period.
In addition, if an exemption is granted for any of the above reasons, then a light disking or a maintenance mowing/shredding shall be used as a substitute required maintenance practice without cost-share assistance. Swathing, haying or grazing is prohibited by National Policy.
“This exemption policy will not be a blanket lifting of the maintenance burn requirement,” Fuller said. “Local county committees will have the authority to exempt certain acreages with safety hazards.”
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