Assistance program
Environmental Quality Incentives Program
$8.2 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Natural Resources Conservation Service, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Direct Payments for Specified Use
- CFDA number
- 10.912
- What it does
- EQIP promotes agricultural production, forest management, and environmental quality as compatible national goals and optimizes environmental benefits on eligible land with farmers, ranchers, and non-industrial private forest land owners. It is a voluntary program using partnerships with local, State, Tribal and Federal agencies, producer associations, and nonprofit organizations to provide flexible technical and financial assistance to implement and maintain structural, vegetative, and land management conservation practices, including practices related to organic production.
- Who benefits
- To be eligible the agricultural producers must be in compliance with highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions and in compliance with the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) payment limitations.
- Who applies
- Agricultural producers who face serious threats to soil, water, and related natural resources, or who need assistance with complying with Federal and State environment laws. A participant may be an owner, landlord, operator, or tenant of eligible agricultural lands or non-industrial forestlands. Limited resource producers, small-scale producers, social disadvantaged individuals, federally recognized Indian tribal governments, Alaska natives, and Pacific Islanders are encouraged to apply.
- Authorized by
- 16 U.S.C. § 3839aa - 3839aa-8
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
How the money flows
Committed dollars by how this program's money is paid out.
Grants
$621.8M
8%
Other
$7.5B
92%
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments