Conservation Stewardship and Business Tools

(Conservation Measurement Tool/ Toolkit/Program Contracts

System)

August 2009

USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer

Discussion Topics

Conservation Stewardship Plan Toolkit Setup Program Contracts System (ProTracts) Setup Program Workflow with Programs Business Tools

Planning in Toolkit Managing Applications in ProTracts

Determining Conservation Measurement Tool (CMT) Performance Points

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

The Conservation Stewardship Plan contains: A record of the participant’s decisions

that describe the schedule of additional conservation activities to be installed and adopted to achieve additional conservation performance improvement under the conservation stewardship contract.

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

Basis for the plan:

Conservation Performance Summary Report

form the CMT.

Field Verification

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

Conservation Stewardship Plan - Individual

activities Contract - Conservation Performance Payment Points by land use and supplemental payment only

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

The Conservation Stewardship Plan will be completed after on-site field verification for approved applications, and

Before contract obligation

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

Will contain:

New Enhancements New practices offered through Conservation

Stewardship Program (CSP) - to meet additional stewardship thresholds

Agreed to practices not offered through CSP

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Enhancements

Planned individually (80 new activity codes)

Adjust acres to the planned amount accepted by the applicant

Customized narratives if needed Reference the job sheet

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Conservation Practices To Meet Additional Stewardship Thresholds

Available for the explicit purpose of encouraging producers to meet additional stewardship

thresholds.

Originally selected with the applicant in the office.

Certified adequate to meet stewardship threshold requirements after field verification

Scheduled any year of the contract

Report to Progress Reporting System (PRS)

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Other Practices Needed

Practices “agreed to” by the applicant not offered through CSP:

Are documented in the Conservation Stewardship Plan

Will use Code - Progress Reporting System (CTA)

Do not duplicate the information in the operator’s farm plan

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

By signing Form NRCS-CPA-1202 - Appendix

Conservation Stewardship Plan Conservation Stewardship Contract Conservation performance levels identified

on the Conservation Performance Summary

Report

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

Signatures

Applicant- Encouraged

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) designated conservationist- required

(to certify the technical adequacy of the plan conservation treatment)

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Operation Adjustments

Annual contract reviews need to be done early enough in the year to allow for any needed substitutions before payments and potential non compliance.

Enhancements may be replaced with similar enhancements as long as the conservation performance estimated by CMT is equal to or better than the conservation performance at enrollment.

Re-run the CMT

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Operation Adjustments

Conservation Performance Summary Report accepted by the applicant

Update Conservation Stewardship Plan

An enhancement replacement that results in a decline below the conservation performance level will not be allowed.

Follow policy in Title 440-Conservation Programs Manual (CPM) – Part 512, Section 512.55

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Supporting Information Maintained With The Participant’s Plan

Conservation Performance Summary Report from CMT (Inventory resource, benchmark data, new activities)

Plan map Documentation for transition to organic farming On-farm research and demos or pilot project proposal State supplemental documents Resource Conserving Crop Rotation (RCCR) rotation

information (job sheet) Other documentation listed on Title 440 – CPM, Part 512,

Section 512.43

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Conservation Stewardship Plan

No upload to Protracts

One Conservation Stewardship Plan supports all stewardship contracts

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Operation and Maintenance

The participant will operate and maintain:

Existing activities on the operation to at least meet the level of conservation performance identify at the time of application on the Conservation Performance Summary Report for the contract period.

Additional conservation activities installed and adopted over the term of the contract.

ProTracts

Toolkit

CMT

Toolkit Set Up

Toolkit permissions must be granted to any new users.

Suggestion: Turn off prior year security enhancements during the signup prior to doing Refresh Domain Data to load the new enhancements for 2009 from conservation practice standards (CPS) This will have no impact to existing contracts. We will let you know when the enhancements are

ready. Optional: Add CSP nonindustrial private forest land

(NIPF) to local land uses. No cost list needed for Toolkit.

Stewardship & Security Enhancements in Toolkit

Application and Appendix from ProTracts

See Title 440, Part 512, Section

512.20 for policy on applications.

Contract numbers will be “81”

New Application Data

Determine Applicant and Land Eligibility

Participants will need to meet conservation adjusted gross income (AGI) ($1 mil), have Form AD-1026 on file, meet highly erodible land/ wetland conservation (HEL/WC), and have a land association

Eligibility matrix will be posted on ProTracts Home Page soon

Determine Applicant and Land Eligibility

Applicants should have farm records on file with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2010.

Non-traditional applicants may need to be added to Service Center Information Management System (SCIMS)

FSA expects to do SCIMS and Farm Records Rollover about September 19

Obligations will occur in FY 2010 and will use FY 2010 eligibility after FSA rollover

Determine Applicant and Land Eligibility

Participants with active CSP 2002 contracts are not eligible to participate in CSP 2008 on the same land units. Look at other ProTracts programs and

their responses on the Form NRCS-CPA-1200 question 8

Due Diligence on Other Program Participation

CPM, Part 508, Section 508.94 - Prohibited Payments

A. Prohibited Activities B. Preventing Duplicate Payments

(1) A program applicant or participant may not schedule the installation of new enhancements or practices through CSP that are earning financial assistance payments through any other U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation program on the same land at the same time. Program applicants will complete the Conservation Performance Summary Report Duplicate Payments Addendum during the application process.

Farms Operated

New button that will determine if the participant is associated with farms in FSA farm records.

At least one farm must be returned to set an application to pre-approved and select the application for funding.

Land Description

Will select one of the land uses that will be used in Conservation Measurement Tool (CMT)

Data must be completed before accessing CMT Before CMT is available please enter estimated acres.

CMT will over-write this data

Basic Resource Inventory

Required Data for Linkage to CMT

Land ownership and lease information completed

Land uses selected on Legal Description tab

Fund code selected Application status is eligible

Application Status = Eligible

See Title 440 – CPM, Part 512, Section 512.26 andSection 512.22(c)

This is not related to FSA eligibility criteria and is set in Manage Applications

Do not have to meet “other” criteria to access CMT which include: Stewardship Threshold Control of Land Farm Operator

ProTracts Data to CMT

Customer, contract number, address, funding pool name and resource concerns.

Using CMT

Last data saved wins. Data can be saved incrementally. Be aware of concurrency issues so only one person

running CMT per application at one time. Changing status to pre-approved locks the data and

disables link to CMT. Changing status back to eligible requires that CMT

be accessed again and data must be submitted back to ProTracts.

Linkage Back From CMT

CMT to ProTracts Data Share

Submit will transfer the following to ProTracts: Total eligible acres Total performance points Acres by land use Performance points per land use RCCR acres and start date Data for calculation in ProTracts of the

tie-breaker

CMT Data in ProTracts

Data will be synched up with CMT submit

Managing the Signup

Application Maintenance – Ranking searches for Ranked or Unranked Applications

Managing the Signup

Changing application status through selection of funding

Tie-Breaker Cropland acre/total operation acres x cropland

conservation performance payment points

+ pastureland acres/total operation acres x pastureland conservation performance payment points + rangeland acres/ total operation acres x rangeland conservation performance payment points = tie-breaker.

Duplications Revisited

The following warning message will appear when setting applications to pre-approved.

Applicants with separate operations (Agricultural Lands and/or NIPF) may have separate applications; however, the same acres cannot be duplicated.

Warning! This applicant has the following active CSP contracts <contract number>. Land enrolled in the CSP is ineligible for enrollment in the CSP. Verification that this application is on different land units is required prior to setting this application to pre-approved.

Tentative Selection for Funding

ProTracts Rules for setting applications topre-approved:

CMT scores present for all applicable land uses Livestock, crop, and organic question answered Minimum one farm associated with participants Tie-breaker present Warning regarding Conservation Security Program

participation

Application Costs and Payment Rates

Linked data from CMT to generate payment rates for pre-approved applications

Payment Rates

Cost per point will be added to ProTracts after the “Payment Discovery Period”

Further information will be provided on next steps once the rate is available

Application Costs and Payment Rates

Calculate button will allow auto-generation of the contract items and payment rates for printing on Form NRCS-CPA-1155

On-Site Field Verification

Verification in the field. Enter date visit was completed. Date will be required to approve an

application and will be stored in contract history.

Planning Enhancements in Toolkit

Conventional planning in Toolkit

CSP and Toolkit

A new CSP Toolkit folder will be required for the applicants

Land units should NOT be merged One Stewardship plan should support all

Stewardship contracts (ag operation and NIPF) Practices needed to meet stewardship threshold

requirements and  not offered through CSP will be planned in the Stewardship Plan as CTA

Planning Enhancements in Toolkit

National narratives provided

Plan Maps

Basic plan maps with treatment unit boundaries and attribute labels Include program in the local land use data

field i.e., CSP - NIPF

Toolkit Plan Plan will be generated

with details on enhancements that are available on the CMT Conservation Performance Summary Report

Plan is signed by the designated conservationist with voluntary participant signature

The plan is incorporated by reference in the CSP appendix

Approving Applications

Participant eligibility is validated At least one farm present At least one item in contract Participant payment limitations are

validated Field verification is completed

ProTracts Contracting

Generate Form NRCS-CPA-1155

ProTracts Contracting

See Title 440 CPM, Part 512, Section 512.42 for steps in approving and signing contract documents.

Participant will sign Form NRCS-CPA-1202 , Form NRCS-CPA-1155, and the appendix.

CSP obligations will go through standard financial management obligation second level review in Fund Manager.

Payment Limitations Enforced in ProTracts

Title 440 - CPM – Part 508 - Section 508.95 - Payment Limitations

A. Person or Legal Entity Limitations

(1) Regardless of the number of contracts entered into underthe program, a person or legal entity may not receive, directly or indirectly, payments that, in the aggregate, exceed:

(i) $40,000 during any fiscal year for all conservation stewardship contracts entered into, and

(ii) $200,000 for all conservation stewardship contractsentered into during any five-year period

(2) The above limitations exclude funding arrangements with federally recognized Indian tribes or Alaska Native corporations as described in Title 440, CPM, Part 508, Section 508.95(C).

Will store history of the application from the ProTracts and CMT evaluation

Obligating Contracts

Managing and Modifying Contracts

Annual Reminder Letters

Send annual practice reminder letters at the beginning of the calendar year.

Contract Reviews

Title 440, CPM, Part 508, Section 508.103 - Contract Reviews

Follow guidance in Title 440 - CPM, Part 512, Section 512.55. Annual reviews will be completed early enough in the year to allow for completion of any necessary corrective actions prior to issuance of the annual payment.

Annual Payments

Title 440 – CPM , Part 508, Section 508.90 - PaymentTypes

Annual Payment Supplemental Payment

Section 508.93 - Timing of Payments (1) The NRCS will make annual and supplemental

payments as soon as practicable after October 1 of each year for activities carried out in the previous year.

Annual Payments

Questions?

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