Do U.S. Counties Comply with 25% CRP Rule?

The 1985 Farm Bill, which established the modern version of the Conservation Reserve Program, dictated that no county could have more than 25% of its eligible cropland acres enrolled in the program.  Later, the Wetland Reserve Program came into existence as another voluntary program designed to protect environmentally sensitive areas, and those acres are to be included when calculating the total enrolled.

Prof. Jonathan Coppess, Ag Policy, University of Illinois: “Part of the concern about this program and some of its predecessor programs in the '30s and the ‘50s was if you take too many acres out of production, you’re really going to hurt rural communities…You’re not going to have grain going to the elevator, you’re not gonna have farmers going in and buying supplies and other things that are in town.”

Jennifer Zwagerman, director, Drake University Agricultural Law Center: “It was trying to find a balance of what’s a number that we think still meets those environmental goals and encourages these types of uses and programs, but also isn’t going to receive pushback from local rural urban communities because they’re afraid of what it means for their economic resources within the community.”

Market to Market filed an open records request to obtain county-level data from the federal government in an effort to ascertain how well the U.S. is complying with its rule. Our investigation revealed that, for 2019, the sample year, the nation’s counties generally succeeded at remaining under the 25% maximum. Only about 1% – or 35 counties nationwide - were in violation that year.

Nationwide, that means 244,000 excess acres were enrolled. If that’s multiplied by the $63-per-acre national average payment at the time, the estimated total overpaid would have been about $15 million. But experts say the excess spent would have at least had a positive societal benefit: protecting soil and water.

Jennifer Zwagerman, director, Drake University Agricultural Law Center: “Overall, I don’t know that it’s a  miss because if the goal is preserving land, I mean all of this money is still going to keeping fragile land out of production, protecting it, working toward those issues.”

Jonathan Coppess says it’s important to remember that the conservation programs, managed by USDA’s Farm Service Agency, benefit all Americans indirectly. CRP is a voluntary program where farmers are paid to take land - much of it environmentally sensitive - out of production.

Jonathan Coppess, University of Illinois: “At the end of the day, those $15 million are still putting in conservation practices on the land and doing some good. So I think there’s always an important distinction between some of the payments we do and what we are trying to do with conservation.”

A pattern emerged in a few states where several counties were in violation of the rule: Colorado, Texas, Georgia and Louisiana each had four or more counties that exceeded the 25% limit. Eleven other states had one to four counties in violation. We created an interactive map on our website, MarketToMarket.org, where you can click on each state and see county-level data.

Two examples where counties violated the 25% rule by a long distance were in Camden County, Georgia, where 320% of eligible acres were reported as being enrolled, and Mineral County, Colorado at 142%. This suggests that ground not considered eligible as cropland was enrolled.

A visit to the USDA office that serves Camden County, Georgia provided little information as to how more than three times the eligible acres were enrolled. An official there said he was uncertain as to how it happened.

Bailey County, Texas was reported as having the greatest excess in terms of total acres enrolled beyond the allowed limit. It enrolled 47,393 extra acres, landing at a total of 37%. That means that, if the amount paid to landowners was in the lower payment range of $50 per acre, an excess of $2.3 million was spent in just that county.

According to USDA, Douglas County, Washington had 43,824 additional acres enrolled in an area where CRP per-acre payments were closer to $100. That enrollment of 32% of eligible acres would mean the government spent an excess of about $4.3 million in that county.

Zwagerman says it is worth noting that federal policy does allow counties to be granted exemptions to the 25% rule. Neither officials with the individual counties nor the USDA media team mentioned this being the case for these particular counties. The USDA media team did send an email response saying FSA works to comply with federal policy and uses software to help counties remain in compliance. The results, they say, are even better as of this year.

USDA: “As of March 2025, only two counties slightly exceed the 25% cropland enrollment limitation. FSA is continuing its work to bring counties into compliance…”

It’s unclear whether the same software was in place prior to Market to Market’s request.

Jonathan Coppess, University of Illinois: “I think it’s a fascinating finding and, being kind of a nerd on this stuff, I think it’s great when it’s helping them – it’s a feedback loop into how they are operating the program... It’s running very well to begin with and if they are improving on top of that, I think that’s overall a great example. Particularly at a time when there’s a lot of focus on kind of beating up federal employees and agencies…It’s not like we couldn’t use a little good news here and there.” 

By Colleen Bradford Krantz, colleen.krantz@iowapbs.org