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Overlooking a scenic Connecticut farm featuring green grass and a blue sky with white puffy clouds.

Connecticut

NRCS is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We work with urban and rural landowners, conservation districts, and federal, state, and local governments to restore, enhance, and protect the landscape to help meet the short- and long-term needs to clothe and feed a hungry world.

Connecticut State Office

Find Your Local Service Center

USDA Service Centers are locations where you can connect with Farm Service Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, or Rural Development employees for your business needs. Enter your state and county below to find your local service center and agency offices. If this locator does not work in your browser, please visit offices.usda.gov.

A soil profile of Manchester Forested.

Connecticut's Soils Program

NRCS, in cooperation with its partners, has the leadership role for conducting soil surveys on private lands across the country.


State Programs and Initiatives

Program Batching Dates:

ACEP-ALE/WRE
December 15, 2023

AMA
October 31, 2023
January 16, 2024

CSP
December 8, 2023
January 26, 2024

CSP-IRA
December 8, 2023
January 26, 2024
April 1, 2024

EQIP
October 31, 2023
January 16, 2024

EQIP-IRA
October 31, 2023
January 16, 2024
April 1, 2024

Screenshot of a list of Connecticut's Payment Schedules from previous year.

State Payment Schedule

NRCS provides financial assistance for selected conservation practices. The availability and amount of financial assistance can vary between states.

Justice for All Poster artwork

Civil Rights Committee

The National Civil Rights Advisory Committee to the Chief (NCRACC) is designed to provide management officials and employees with counsel and advice to enhance and ensure compliance with their equal employment opportunity and program delivery responsibilities.

Map of Connecticut showing the state's rivers (in blue)

State Technical Committee

State Technical Committees serve in an advisory capacity to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and other agencies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the implementation of the natural resources conservation provisions of Farm Bill legislation.

How to Get Assistance

Do you farm or ranch and want to make improvements to the land that you own or lease?

Natural Resources Conservation Service offers technical and financial assistance to help farmers, ranchers and forest landowners.

how to get started

To get started with NRCS, we recommend you stop by your local NRCS field office. We’ll discuss your vision for your land.

NRCS provides landowners with free technical assistance, or advice, for their land. Common technical assistance includes: resource assessment, practice design and resource monitoring. Your conservation planner will help you determine if financial assistance is right for you.

We’ll walk you through the application process. To get started on applying for financial assistance, we’ll work with you:

  • To fill out an AD 1026, which ensures a conservation plan is in place before lands with highly erodible soils are farmed. It also ensures that identified wetland areas are protected.
  • To meet other eligibility certifications.

Once complete, we’ll work with you on the application, or CPA 1200.

Applications for most programs are accepted on a continuous basis, but they’re considered for funding in different ranking periods. Be sure to ask your local NRCS district conservationist about the deadline for the ranking period to ensure you turn in your application in time.

As part of the application process, we’ll check to see if you are eligible. To do this, you’ll need to bring:

  • An official tax ID (Social Security number or an employer ID)
  • A property deed or lease agreement to show you have control of the property; and
  • A farm number.

If you don’t have a farm number, you can get one from USDA’s Farm Service Agency. Typically, the local FSA office is located in the same building as the local NRCS office. You only need a farm number if you’re interested in financial assistance.

NRCS will take a look at the applications and rank them according to local resource concerns, the amount of conservation benefits the work will provide and the needs of applicants. View Application Ranking Dates by State.

If you’re selected, you can choose whether to sign the contract for the work to be done.

Once you sign the contract, you’ll be provided standards and specifications for completing the practice or practices, and then you will have a specified amount of time to implement. Once the work is implemented and inspected, you’ll be paid the rate of compensation for the work if it meets NRCS standards and specifications.