USDA FSA Emergency Conservation Program

Overview

The USDA Farm Service Agency’s (FSA) Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) helps farmers and ranchers repair damage to farmlands caused by natural disasters by giving them funding and assistance to repair the damaged farmland.

For land to qualify for ECP funds, the natural disaster damage must create new conservation problems that could potentially:

• Further damage the land,
• Significantly affect the land’s productive capacity,
• Represent damage from a natural disaster unusual for the area (an exception to this is damage from wind erosion), and/or
• Be too costly to repair without federal assistance in order to return the land to agricultural production.

The funding can be used for emergency conservation practices to rehabilitate farmland, such as:

• Removing debris from farmland (e.g., woody material, sand, rock and trash on cropland or pastureland);
• Grading, shaping or leveling land (filling gullies, releveling irrigated farmland and incorporating sand and silt);
• Restoring fences (livestock cross fences, boundary fences, cattle gates, or wildlife exclusion fence on agricultural land); and
• Restoring conservation structures (waterways, terraces, diversion ditches and permanently installed ditching system).

Next Steps:

1. Document (or have the USDA document) damage with dated photographs, videos, and third-party verification.
2. Find your local Farm Service Agency office.
3. Report to a local Service Center as soon as possible after a disaster to request assistance. The county FSA office will provide guidance on the approval process and next steps.

Special Considerations:

• Conservation problems that existed before the disaster or severe drought are ineligible for ECP assistance.
• Immediate restoration is only available in urgent emergency situations, such as when fencing needs to be put up to confine livestock.