Local farmers to know who was accepted in CRP next week
By J.T. SMITH
Farm Editor
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday it would pay farmers an average of $40 per acre not to grow crops on 16.1 million acres of land accepted for the Conservation Reserve Program.
Local farmers and landowners should know next week whether their bids to idle their land into the CRP were accepted or rejected.
"All county offices - including Taylor County - were told Thursday that we should get the local notifications in overnight mail," said Tim Hall, executive director of the Taylor County Farm Service Agency.
If so, that means Taylor County - as well all FSA county offices in this region - should know who was accepted or rejected by late today.
Following the Memorial Day holiday break on Monday, Hall said his office would then begin the paperwork of notifying farmers by mail. He expects other county FSA offices will follow the same procedure.
In the entire Abilene region, almost 500,000 acres of land was idled in the original 10-year CRP. Many of those contracts expired this year.
Taylor County alone had about 150 bid attempts in this latest signup, Hall said. Many area counties - such as Runnels, Jones, and Haskell - have large amounts of land idled in the CRP.
Related story: Texas takes hit in program