County committee asks for increase in cap on CRP land

Whitman County’s Farm Service Agency committee has asked county commissioners permission to lift the cap on the amount of county land that can be enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program.

Federal regulations limit the amount of land that can be enrolled in CRP to 25 percent of a county’s cropland. Whitman County currently has 191,457 acres, or 18 percent of its cropland enrolled in CRP.

Under CRP, landowners receive payments under long-term contracts to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production.

The first general CRP signup period in three years opened Aug. 2 and r...