The United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) administers the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). CRP is the Federal Government's single largest environmental improvement program on private lands and one of the most effective. (USDA, 1999, p.3) Today, the CRP program is safeguarding millions of acres of American topsoil from erosion, improving air quality, increasing wildlife habitat, and protecting ground and surface water by reducing water runoff and sedimentation. The program is a major component of the Secretary of Agriculture's Buffer Initiative, which is an effort to plant vegetation along streams, rivers, and other bodies of water throughout the country. Countless lakes, rivers, ponds, and streams are cleaner, healthier, and more useful because of CRP. (USDA, 1999 pg.3 & NRCS, 2001 pg.15) .
The CRP has its roots in the Soil Bank Act of 1956. At that time, with memories of the Dust Bowl devastation of the 1930's still fresh in everyone's mind, the Nation sought to prevent repeating the mistakes that had helped cause the great disaster. Recognizing that eroding cropland had to be protected and seeking to head off the destructive effects of overproduction of major crops, Congress authorized the USDA to enter into long-term conservation contracts with farmers and ranchers. The Department shared the cost of converting cropland to protective vegetative cover. Over it's 10-year life; the 1956 Soil Bank Program diverted 28.7 million acres to conservation practices on 306,000 farms. Two similar long-term contract programs, the Cropland Conservation Program in 1962 and the Cropland Adjustment Program in 1965, followed it. (USDA, 1999 pg.12, 13).
In the early and mid-1970's, the price of farm commodities rose significantly, due to diminished stocks and increased export demand. U.S. producers responded by planting on marginal cropland and by breaking out and planting crops on range and pasture lands.