Assistance program
Conservation Stewardship Program
$11.6 Billion committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Natural Resources Conservation Service, Agriculture, Department of
- Assistance
- Cooperative Agreements
- CFDA number
- 10.924
- What it does
- Through CSP, NRCS provides financial and technical assistance to eligible producers to conserve and enhance soil, water, air, and related natural resources on their land. Eligible lands include cropland, grassland, prairie land, pastureland, rangeland, nonindustrial private forest lands, agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe, and other private agricultural land (including cropped woodland, marshes, and agricultural land used for the production of livestock) on which resource concerns related to agricultural production could be addressed. Participation in the program is voluntary. CSP encourages land stewards to improve their conservation performance by installing and adopting additional activities, and improving, maintaining, and managing existing activities on agricultural land and nonindustrial private forest land. The NRCS will make CSP available nationwide on a continuous application basis.
- Who benefits
- The program provides equitable access to all producers, regardless of operation size, crops produced, or geographic location. Individual producers, legal entities, corporations, and Indian Tribes may be eligible for the program. Eligible lands include cropland, grassland, prairie land, pastureland, rangeland, nonindustrial private forest land, and agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe. As stated in the Federal Register, 1470.6a, Applicants must be the operator of record in the USDA farm records management system for the eligible land being offered for enrollment; have documented control of the land for the term of the proposed contract; include the eligible land in their entire operation as represented for other USDA programs; and be in compliance with the highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions of 7 CFR Part 12, and adjusted gross income provisions of 7 CFR part 1400. The applicants operation must also meet a stewardship threshold.
- Who applies
- The program provides equitable access to all producers, regardless of operation size, crops produced, or geographic location. Individual producers, legal entities, corporations, and Indian Tribes may be eligible for the program. Eligible lands include cropland, grassland, prairie land, pastureland, rangeland, nonindustrial private forest land, and agricultural land under the jurisdiction of an Indian tribe. Applicants must have documented control of the land for the term of the proposed contract; include the eligible land in their entire operation as represented for other USDA programs; and be in compliance with the highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions of 7 CFR Part 12, and adjusted gross income provisions of 7 CFR part 1400. The applicant’s operation must also meet a stewardship threshold.
- Authorized by
- Title XII, subtitle D, chapter 4, subchapter B of the Food Security Act of 1985
- Public Law 115-334
- Public Law 117-169
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
$192.4M
2%
Other
$11.4B
98%
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