Fall is finally upon us! Having grown up a little further north than Oklahoma, I am enjoying the cooler weather and a reprieve from the humidity! As an agency, we have wrapped up fiscal year 2023 and are excited for the increased opportunities we will have as we move into 2024. In 2023, we were able to cost share conservation activities on almost 600,000 acres through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and we are expecting our available funding for these programs in 2024 to be even greater!
NRCS has set our application batching date for 2024 funding consideration for Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) for Friday November 3, 2023. In addition to moving that deadline up to assist with earlier contracting dates, we are also implementing Act Now funding through EQIP this year. With Act Now, as applications are received for cover crops, perennial seedings and high tunnels, they will be immediately evaluated and ranked. If they meet a pre-determined threshold based on the resource concerns addressed, they will be obligated without having to wait for a future ranking deadline. This will allow staff to expedite the contracting process and for our customers to implement conservation practices sooner. We will be evaluating how the process works in 2024 and may have an opportunity to expand those opportunities in future years.
I would also like to apologize to those of you who may have received a text message about our program batching date at a late hour! We utilize an automated system to send those notifications out to subscribers to help keep you informed of pertinent information. Although we sent the message from our system at 4:30pm, some recipients have reported that it was not delivered until late into the night. In the future, we will send those out earlier in the day so that if there is a delay, it will not push back to a midnight hour.
We look forward to working with you on your conservation needs in 2024!
Jeanne Hamilton, Oklahoma State Conservationist
