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USDA Department: Natural Resource Conservation Service
Grant focus: The USDA-NRCS's Agricultural Conservation Easement Program helps landowners, land trusts, and other entities protect, restore, and enhance wetlands or protect working farms and ranches through conservation easements.
The Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) protects the agricultural viability and related conservation values of eligible land by limiting nonagricultural uses which negatively affect agricultural uses and conservation values, protect grazing uses and related conservation values by restoring or conserving eligible grazing land, and protecting and restoring and enhancing wetlands on eligible land.
Eligibility: Land eligible for Agricultural Land Easements includes cropland, rangeland, grassland, pastureland, and nonindustrial private forest land associated with an agricultural operation. NRCS will prioritize applications that protect agricultural uses and related conservation values of the land and those that maximize the protection of contiguous acres devoted to agricultural use. To enroll land through Agricultural Land Easements, NRCS enters into agreements with eligible entities. Land eligible for Wetland Reserve Easements includes farmed or converted wetlands that have been previously altered for agricultural production that can be successfully and cost-effectively restored. NRCS will prioritize applications based on the easement’s potential for improving water quality and protecting and enhancing habitat for migratory birds and other wildlife.
