Cold Steppe EQIP 2024

Navigate Arkansas's 2024 Environmental Quality Incentives Program

Digital technical assistance for farmers and ranchers in Arkansas.
Brought to you by Cold Steppe, FarmRaise and the Arkansas Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

Cost-Share for Arkansas Farmers & Ranchers

Per acre and per project rates
Funding for:
- Organic production
- On-farm energy
- Wildlife habitat
- Groundwater resources
- Water quality enhancement & protection
- Soil health
- High tunnels

‍Submit your application to your local USDA-NRCS office by December 22, 2024!

How to Apply

Applications are accepted throughout the year, on a rolling basis. To be considered for the latest round of funding, you must apply by December 31, 2024.

We've partnered to provide you with a free resource to help you navigate the paperwork associated with your application. Take advantage of this opportunity using the link to the left.

‍Here's how to apply:
‍1. Make sure you have up-to-date records at the Farm Service Agency. If not, fill out the appropriate forms and submit these to your local USDA-FSA office as soon as possible. You may also need to update your records if there's been a significant change in farm structure, operations or ownership.

2. Review the Arkansas NRCS's list of top resource concerns and special initiatives for this year and make sure your farm needs align with these goals (see more on these below).

3. Complete the Conservation Program Application (CPA-1200) and submit it to your local NRCS office by the program deadline.

4. They'll reach out to you to process your application. Typically, they will conduct a site visit of your farm to better understand your resource concerns. Then, they will work to develop a conservation plan for your farm, tying specific conservation practices and cost-share rates to the resource concerns on your farm.

5. Your application is then ranked against others submitted during this batching period.

6. If your application is not funded during this period, you can choose to roll it over for future consideration.

7. Need help or have questions? Find your local Arkansas NRCS county office and give them a call.

Visitors to this site have access to an exclusive 30-day free trial of FarmRaise Premium software to generate their paperwork for FSA Records and NRCS-EQIP."

What are Resource Concerns and why do they matter?

‍The NRCS offers programs to help farmers, ranchers and landowners protect their natural resources against core resource concerns that are specific to your geography. NRCS financial and technical assistance programs are targeted at tackling the highest priority resource concerns in a given state. This framing of resource concerns is how the NRCS decides which farmers, ranchers or landowners to allocate its limited resources to in a given year.To have the highest chance of getting NRCS support, you should be prepared to talk about your farm's resource concerns and to work with the NRCS to build a conservation plan that outlines how you will tackle these concerns on your land.In Arkansas, the priority resource concerns are:

Degraded Plant Condition, including plant productivity and health
Soil Quality Limitations, including soil compaction, soil microorganism habitat and organic matter depletion
Source Water Depletion
Air Quality (Crittendon County only)

These resource concerns then get mapped to specific actions you can take through implementing specific conservation practices. These conservation practices have specific NRCS codes and payment rates. The cost-share rates can help you cover the cost of implementing the practice or paying for materials and contractors.

"Historically Underserved" Producers

You may qualify for higher cost-share payment rates and/or up-front payments if you are a historically underserved producer. The USDA NRCS defines historically underserved producers as producers who are:
‍
- Beginning farmers within their first 10 years of production

- Low-income farmers at the poverty threshold in their locality

- Farmers of color, indigenous farmers and hispanic farmers

- Veteran farmers (within 10 years of their discharge date)
‍
When you complete your paperwork to set up your FSA records and apply for EQIP, you will be asked to fill out a form to certify your historically underserved status. This is completely optional.

Learn more here and download the form here. Please note that if you use the FarmRaise paperwork tool linked above, this form is included.

Paperwork Assistance

We know the paperwork can be daunting to apply for USDA programs. That's why we're partnering to provide free technical support leveraging the FarmRaise software. We've made the software available for free to users of this website for 30-days, which is plenty of time to get your paperwork complete for both FSA Records and EQIP.

With this software, FarmRaise has helped over 20,000 farmers and ranchers across the United States learn about, apply for and manage their farm funding, including through programs like NRCS EQIP.

The modules within the FarmRaise app will help you generate the right forms for USDA programs, ensuring you don't have to enter the same thing twice. The modules will help you generate the following PDFs: CCC-901, CCC-902, CCC-941, AD-1026, CCC-860 and CPA-1200.

While you're using your free trial, you can also test out the other FarmRaise features where you can discover new grant and cost-share programs, receive and manage funding alerts for new programs and upcoming deadlines and manage and track your finances via the FarmRaise Tracks accounting platform.