Colorado CRP Land
What is CRP? Conservation Reserve Program
Adverse impacts of ongoing soil erosion in the U.S. resulted in legislative authority for the conservation reserve program (CRP) under the Food Security Act of 1985 (P.L. 98-198). The CRP is a voluntary program offering annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to establish long-term resource-conserving covers on eligible land.
Placing cultivated or highly erodible land into permanent plant cover potentially increases the amount of atmospheric CO2-C captured and sequestered as SOC. The change in the SOC pool size is the net result of C additions minus C losses. Establishment of a permanent grass cover can increase the mass of C added into the soil, relative to what may be returned by traditional cropping systems, while lack of mechanical disturbance and absence of tillage decreases rates of SOC oxidation to CO2 and the rate at which CO2-C is returned to the atmosphere.
Adverse impacts of ongoing soil erosion in the U.S. resulted in legislative authority for the conservation reserve program (CRP) under the Food Security Act of 1985 (P.L. 98-198). The CRP is a voluntary program offering annual rental payments and cost-share assistance to establish long-term resource-conserving covers on eligible land. Placing cultivated or highly erodible land into permanent plant cover potentially increases the amount of atmospheric CO2-C captured and sequestered as SOC. The change in the SOC pool size is the net result of C additions minus C losses. Establishment of a permanent grass cover can increase the mass of C added into the soil, relative to what may be returned by traditional cropping systems, while lack of mechanical disturbance and absence of tillage decreases rates of SOC oxidation to CO2 and the rate at which CO2-C is returned to the atmosphere.
The CRP is a highly important land use in the west and especially within Colorado, as indicated by the following data. The current area in the CRP program is 33.8 million acres (www.fsa.usda.gov), an area equivalent to about 10% of all U.S. cropland. The CRP is not evenly spread across the U.S. For example, within the Great Plains and western Corn Belt (a 13 state region including TX, NM, CO, WY, MT, OK, KS, NE, SD, ND, MO, IA, and MN) there are 25.1 million acres, or 74.3 % of all CRP land in the U.S.
In Colorado, the area under CRP is 2.2 million acres, an area that accounts for 6.5% of all CRP land in the U.S. and an area that is equivalent to 26.3% of all cropland within Colorado. Of 37 counties in CO with active CRP contracts, just six counties (Baca, Weld, Washington, Kiowa, Kit Carson, and Prowers) account for about 55 % of the CRP area within Colorado. Answers are needed about the accrued beneficial effects of CRP from placing land under permanent cover and benefits that may be lost by removal of land from CRP and returning it to cultivation, especially effects upon SOC sequestration.
Should economic conditions change or the CRP program be terminated it is probable that much of the 800,000 hectares of CRP in eastern Colorado would be converted back to dryland crops.
