Program | Environment.org

EDITOR’S NOTE: On October 9, 2024, NSAC released Stewarding Success: CSP Under the 2018 Farm Bill, a comprehensive analysis of the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) over the course of the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 (2018 Farm Bill). The report offers an in-depth analysis of CSP’s enrollment trends, conservation practices supported, and funding impacts, including the effects of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022. This blog post is the first of a series of five posts highlighting the key findings of the report and offering a national overview of this vital farm bill conservation program.

What is the Conservation Stewardship Program?

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is a voluntary program run by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) through its Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). CSP aims to enhance natural resources while maintaining profitable agricultural production. It does …

Building Resilience Through the Conservation Stewardship Program

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| Sustainability

$ 25 Million Available for On-Farm Conservation Innovation Grants — A test plot of crimson clover at USDA NRCS Plant Material Center.

One of the key questions lingering over the 2023 farm bill reauthorization is whether Congress will approve a farm bill that builds climate resilience for the countless farmers whose livelihoods depend on it. While there is not one policy solution that can do this alone, the facts show that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is perhaps the single most ready-made tool for farmers to voluntarily tackle climate change.

CSP is an incredibly popular program among farmers. In 2020, more than 20,000 farmers were turned away from the program due to a lack of funding. And in 2022, the number of farmers turned away from CSP due to a lack of funding had grown to over 24,000. In these two years, more …

How to build a better bike-share program

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| Pollution

This story is part of the Cities + Solutions series, which chronicles surprising and inspiring climate initiatives in communities across the U.S. through stories of cities leading the way. For early access to the rest of the series, subscribe to the Looking Forward climate solutions newsletter.

Geoff Coats still remembers how he felt when, in May 2020, all 1,350 bicycles in New Orleans’s popular bike-share program vanished.

“It was horrible,” says Coats, who managed the service, called Blue Bikes, for its owner, Uber. “For a lot of people, it was a little bit of PTSD from Hurricane Katrina, when the national chains could have reopened weeks after the storm but stayed away. It felt like, once again, when we’re down, we get kicked.”

Blue Bikes, which New Orleans launched in 2017 to reduce emissions and offer reliable transportation …