WASHINGTON, March 31, 2015 - TODAY, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will announce the availability of financial and technical assistance through the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program(ACEP). Also on the media call will be Jason Weller, chief of USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).
The 2014 Farm Bill consolidated three previous conservation easement programs into ACEP to make it easier for diverse agricultural landowners to fully benefit from conservation initiatives.
USDA easement programs have been a critical tool in recent years for advancing landscape-scale private lands conservation. Last year, NRCS used $328 million in ACEP funding to enroll an estimated 145,000 acres of farmland, grassland, and wetlands through 485 new easements.
