Last week we dove into what over 26 million acres of CRP looks like. To be fully transparent, others like me and myself have worked for years to try to increase our CRP acres by informing landowners and helping them through the process. If it’s not part of your world and you don’t have information on it, you aren’t likely to enroll. You don’t know what you don’t know.
As a team, the Pheasants Forever biologists have been very successful at our jobs. The assumption was that if we show that there is a need to increase the CRP acre cap that there would be a realized need to raise it. The 2023, er I mean, 2025 Farm Bill isn’t written yet, but it seems unlikely that an acre cap increase will happen. Of course surprises happen, but you can wish on one hand and…. I’ll let you finish that one. We could also see a decrease in the CRP cap as that has obviously happened before. As I mentioned last week though, 27 million acres isn’t what it was in the last farm bill with 10 million of it grassland acres.
Do pastures raise wildlife? Of course they do, especially if they are managed better and not overgrazed resulting in healthier plant communities. It is near impossible for us to recreate the diversity that is in a native plant community from cropland acres. Healthier diverse plant communities also increase forage production for our livestock, so Grassland CRP is a great program. It does affect the CRP acre cap though, and this is new territory for writing a new farm bill. There are unintended consequences here, what’s on paper doesn’t look as rosy when we dissect it.
Good news, South Dakota has around 2.4 million acres of land enrolled into CRP ranking second in CRP enrollment by acreage. Caveat, 1.48 million acres of that is Grassland CRP giving us just over 900,000 acres of traditional CRP. Interestingly, we are 4th in total dollars in CRP payments. The other states in the top three by acreage, Nebraska and Colorado, also have a lion’s share of the Grassland CRP acres.
I’m sorry if the following has too many figures but CRP has been around awhile with many different farm bills within that time. All of the following are South Dakota CRP acre totals: 1990 – 1.74 million; 1998 – 1.77 million; 1999 – 1.47 million; 2007 – 1.56 million; 2008 – 1.3 million; 2010 – 1 million; 2016 – 977,000; 2018 – 1 million. I know there isn’t an exact pattern to the years stated, it’s just the years with numbers available. As a state we haven’t improved since 2010 in traditional CRP acres. In fact, we are arguably as low as we have been during the life of CRP even though CRP acres in South Dakota are stated at 2.4 million, which if those acres were traditional CRP we would have 600,000 more acres than the paradise I grew up in. If that paradise exists now, it must be a mirage.
I don’t have specific county numbers until 2007, only ranges but I think we can still take some things away from the ranges.
Miner County be proud. It is as good of a model of consistency in CRP numbers as any county in the state. In the years that I only have a range (‘90, ’98, ’99, ’08, ’10) Miner stayed in the 15 to 25 thousand range. In 2007, Miner had 19,418 acres enrolled; 2016 – 20,668; 2018 – 21,749; 2024 – 21,620. This is the only county in my region that has increased acres since 2007, gaining 2,202.
Sanborn County is the one county in purgatory here. We are down about 4,000 acres from 2007; 23,959 acres versus 20,057. However, that number was as low as 16,862 in 2016. If there was good news in that data, it was that. The years with ranges are hard to gauge but in 1998 and 1999 Sanborn was in the 25,000 to 50,000 range. So, I think I’m safe in saying it was at least above 25,000.
Gut punch time. I’m sorry Jerauld and Kingsbury. Since 2007 Jerauld has lost 62% of it’s CRP and Kingsbury 43%. In 2007 Jerauld had 14,787 acres with that falling to 5,629 in 2024. Kingsbury had 16,177 acres in 2007 and 9,300 acres in 2024. The interesting thing I find with Kingsbury CRP enrollment is that it is a much larger county than Miner and Sanborn with a lot of lake areas and saline areas on the west side of the county which should spell more opportunities to enroll unproductive land into CRP. Jerauld had been in the 15 – 25,000-acre range until 2007 and it has been a losing battle since. Kingsbury was in the 15 – 25,000-acre range until 2008 and fell hard to as low as 7,250 acres in 2016 but the 9,300 acres in 2024 is a step in the right direction.
I know many of you won’t care about the CREP numbers but if you don’t hunt or get paid for someone to hunt your CRP, this is something to think about as CREP is 31% and 34% higher than the CRP soil rental rate. It can be changed when you re-enroll. Here is where Sanborn County shines at least in the four-county region. This county has more CREP than the other three counties combined acres. Miner has two total for 275 acres, Kingsbury one at about 160 acres, and Jerauld with four for 560 acres.
I know, this is a lot of numbers to digest but I think they are worth pondering.