CREP is Back

by Michelle Bloomquist, Justin Ramey, Chris Young | August 1, 2022 | Land

Tall grasses and trees are interspersed in a wetland on a sunny afternoon. In the background is a tall grassy shoreline and a partly cloudy sky.

Photo courtesy of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

A map of Illinois with the top right to the bottom left area colored in green and the rivers in blue indicating land eligible for the Illinois Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program Partnership between the USDA and the State of Illinois.

On June 15, 2022, the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) reopened to enrollment.

For more than 20 years, CREP has been a successful partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Service Agency (FSA), the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and the local Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCDs). As a subprogram to USDA’s widely popular Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), CREP provides long-term environmental benefits by allowing up to 232,000 acres of eligible environmentally sensitive lands within the Illinois River and Kaskaskia River watersheds to be restored, enhanced, and protected over periods ranging from 15 years to perpetuity.

Illinois CREP was created through an agreement between USDA/FSA and the State of Illinois in March of 1998. In 2015, the Illinois CREP program was placed under suspension due to the lack of a state budget. After CREP funding was reinstated in 2017, IDNR and FSA began the long process to restart the program. IDNR began hiring new CREP staff and re-negotiating the FSA/IDNR CREP agreement. IDNR also worked with SWCDs to develop new agreements and contracts, and recently hired a team of specialists to work directly with landowners. The amended CREP agreement was executed in 2021 and IDNR Director Colleen Callahan reopened the program on June 15, 2022. State funding for the program is provided through Governor JB Pritzker’s Rebuild Illinois capital program.

A graphic with a photo on the top left and bottom right and text on the top right and bottom left. The photo on the top left is of a field of prairie wildflowers, and in the background is a woodland edge against a partly cloudy sky. The photo on the bottom right is of a group of tan deer and black wild turkeys in between an agricultural field after harvest and a field of tall tan prairie grasses. — Top left photo by Anne Hughes. Bottom right photo courtesy of Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

In CREP, landowners enroll frequently flooded and environmentally sensitive cropland in a federal CREP/CRP contract with FSA. IDNR extends the environmental benefits of that federal contract by enrolling the land into an Illinois CREP grant of conservation right and easement agreement (easement) for 15 years or in perpetuity beyond the expiration of the federal CREP/CRP contract. In exchange for voluntarily removing land from production, landowners receive compensation to implement conservation practices.

The goals of CREP are to reduce sediment and nutrient runoff, improve water quality, and create and enhance critical habitat for fish and wildlife populations on private lands. As one of the oldest and most popular CREP programs in the nation, the CREP partnership has achieved restoration and long-term protection on more than 90,000 acres in conservation easements. With more than 90 percent of land in Illinois privately owned, programs such as CREP are essential to provide private landowners with opportunities to implement sound conservation practices on their own land.

A graphic with a photo on the left and text on the right. The photo is of a gray, brown, and white speckled sandpiper shorebird wading in a wetland with a tadpole in its long slender beak. — Photo by Michael R. Jeffords.

Interested farmers, ranchers and agricultural landowners are encouraged to contact the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Farm Service Agency or their local Soil and Water Conservation District for more information about enrolling in Illinois CREP.

Michelle Bloomquist is the Manager of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Justin Ramey is a Private Lands Ecologist at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Chris Young is the Director of the Office of Resource Conservation at the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

With contributions by the CREP Conservation Resource Specialists.