BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - A Conservation Reserve Program offshoot that’s aimed at boosting wildlife habitat has surpassed 1 million acres, thanks to a recent signup of land in North Dakota.
The amount of land in the State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement program is double what the federal government envisioned when it launched the effort seven years ago. The program has given a boost to wildlife in three dozen states - from pheasants in the Upper Midwest to sparrows on the east coast to mule deer and elk in the Pacific Northwest.
The SAFE program pays landowners to idle land for 10-15 years and offers financial help with creating or improving wildlife habitat.
“As it enhances the flora and fauna of the countryside, it can also create recreational opportunities for the sportsman, which is an investment in the rural economy as well,” federal Farm Service Agency Administrator Val Dolcini said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture said in January 2008 its goal was to restore or enhance 500,000 acres of wildlife habitat through the program. The recent enrollment of about 300 acres of land in southeastern North Dakota’s LaMoure County put the program over the 1 million acre mark. One acre is about the size of a football field without the end zones.
Harry Schlenker of rural Jud, who enrolled the millionth acre, said the combined benefits to himself as a farmer and rancher and to hunters including his sons helped draw him to the program.
“It keeps the soil from eroding, and we’ll also have pasture and hay if a drought happens to strike, and it almost did this spring,” said Schlenker, 82. “And it benefits wildlife - there’s ducks and geese, and wild animals like fox and coyotes.”
The SAFE program is proving more popular than expected because landowners can enroll smaller chunks of land for more targeted purposes and they like the added benefit to wildlife, especially if they happen to also be hunters, said Aaron Krauter, the Farm Service Agency’s state director in North Dakota. The general Conservation Reserve Program, which pays landowners to idle environmentally fragile land, has seen waning interest in recent years, particularly as commodity prices have risen and farmers have turned more land back into crop production.
“People are getting more specific in the contracts that they want to sign,” Krauter said. “It’s a program that has just fine-tuned itself.”
For example, he said, in North Dakota, land can be enrolled in one of four geographic areas, to benefit waterfowl such as ducks and geese, grouse, prairie chickens or pheasants.
The general CRP also has been criticized for taking cropland out of production and for paying farmers not to farm. The benefits to wildlife through the SAFE program “dampen that criticism a little,” Krauter said. “You’re not seeing large tracts of productive land being put in. You’re finding those more specific areas.”
___
Follow Blake Nicholson on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/NicholsonBlake
Please read our comment policy before commenting.