IOWA FARMERS EAGER TO ENROLL LAND INTO THE CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM


Of the 800,000 new acres enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) nationally in 2016, 128,212 or 16% were from Iowa — the most of any state. Currently, Iowa has about 1.6 million acres enrolled in the CRP on more than 52,800 farms.


Nationally, over three million acres were offered for enrollment in 2016 across the three main categories within CRP, with USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) receiving over 26,000 offers to enroll more than 1.8 million acres during the general enrollment period, and over 4,600 offers to enroll more than one million acres in the new CRP Grasslands program.


For many years, enrollment in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) was 30 - 36 million acres, but Congress lowered that total in the 2014 farm bill to 24 million acres. The next opportunity to raise the limit will be in 2019 when the new farm bill is adopted in 2018. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) are in favor of raising the limit. Grassley and Ernst are members of the Senate Agriculture Committee in charge of writing the farm bill.


The next CRP sign up period will be Dec. 1, 2016 – Feb 28, 2017. Sources: USDA News Release, May 5; Des Moines Register, May 6


iowa SALES TAX spotlight Q:


A:


Does the new Federal Overtime Rule affect the exemptions of our ag technicians?


Specifically, the overtime requirements do not apply to “any salesman, partsman or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles, trailers, trucks, farm implements or aircraft if employed by a non-manufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling such vehicles to ultimate purchasers.”


Sept/Oct | The Retailer Magazine | 9


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