USDA Announces Funding for Inflation Reduction Act | News, Sports, Jobs

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced new funding for the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP) for fiscal year 2025 as part of President Biden and Vice President Harris’ Investing in America program. Administered by USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, the program helps landowners and other eligible entities conserve, restore, and protect wetlands, productive agricultural lands, and grasslands at risk of conversion to non-grassland uses.

Healthy wetlands, grasslands and agricultural lands sequester carbon and provide many other natural resource benefits.

The funding is made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest investment in climate action in history.

NRCS accepts applications year-round for ACEP Agricultural Land Easements (ACEP-ALE) and Wetland Reserve Easements (ACEP-WRE).

Interested producers, landowners and partners must apply by the next two filing dates, October 4, 2024 or December 20, 2024, to their local NRCS office to be considered for these two state-led funding rounds.

Additionally, any application submitted to NRCS that was not funded in fiscal year 2024 will automatically be reconsidered during the October 4 funding cycle.

In FY 2025, states will receive funding under the Inflation Reduction Act and all eligible applications within a state will be competitively awarded. Current ACEP priorities for Inflation Reduction Act funding are unchanged from the previous fiscal year and are available to all states. Depending on location, NRCS may also have a state-specific priority. Inflation Reduction Act funding is in addition to funding authorized and available under the Farm Bill.

For ACEP-ALE, the NRCS is currently prioritizing securing:

• Grasslands in areas at highest risk of conversion to non-grassland uses to prevent the release of soil carbon reserves.

• Agricultural land threatened with conversion to non-agricultural uses.

• State-specific priorities, including rice cultivation on subsidized, highly organic soils.

For ACEP-WRE, the NRCS is currently prioritizing:

• Lands with soils rich in organic carbon.

• Eligible lands that will be restored and managed as forests, such as lowland hardwood forests.

• Eligible lands within existing forest cover that will be managed as forests.

• Several geographically specific priorities (i.e., former cranberry bogs, wet meadows and ephemeral wetlands in grassland ecosystems).

The Inflation Reduction Act provided $1.4 billion in additional funding for ACEP over five years and a revised ACEP authority, providing funding for easements that will maximize the reduction, capture, avoidance or sequestration of greenhouse gas emissions.

The amount authorized for fiscal year 2025 under the Inflation Reduction Act for funding ACEP is $500 million.

For more information, see the fact sheet, ACEP and the Inflation Reduction Act.

To learn more about NRCS programs, producers can contact their local USDA Service Center. Producers can also apply for NRCS programs, manage conservation plans and contracts, and view and print conservation maps by logging into their farmers.gov account. If you don’t have an account, sign up today.