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With approximately 1.2 million acres enrolled, the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is one of the most successful conservation programs in Washington state. As part of the CRP, the State Acres for Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE) initiative plays a particularly critical role in restoring and recovering wildlife by establishing habitat through voluntary conservation efforts. It also highlights CRP’s success in our state because it is tailored to the type of landowner and their land, and the importance of local, state and federal partnerships in perpetuating its success.

As of 2020, SAFE has more than 112,000 acres enrolled – representing just under 10 percent of CRP in Washington. Additionally, the SAFE initiative is particularly important to sage-grouse and sharp-tailed grouse with over 70,000 acres enrolled in Douglas County – home to core grouse populations on mostly private working lands. Unfortunately, the efforts and partnerships formed through SAFE were recently hindered by changes to the initiative.

These changes limit the viability of SAFE and could also impact voluntary conservation efforts in the county:

1) The 2018 Farm Bill struck the broad waiver language that allowed a county’s cropland acreage enrolled in CRP to exceed 25 percent and makes only Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) eligible for this waiver. Now in counties, like Douglas County, FSA cannot offer a CRP signup until enough contracts expire to get under the 25 percent county cropland acreage cap which will take two to three years.
2) The Farm Service Agency (FSA) made a discretionary decision to move SAFE whole field practices from Continuous CRP to General CRP. Now producers can only offer acres during the annual general signup through a competitive process rather than the past non-competitive continuous signup, and financial incentives are greatly reduced.

In June 2020, agricultural producers in Douglas County volunteered to speak about the importance of CRP and its SAFE initiative to wildlife conservation and their local economy as well as the consequences of the above changes in a film. The film was in the editing process when the Pearl Hill Fire swept through Douglas County in September 2020 – burning more than 223,000 acres and devastating property, livelihoods and large swathes of wildlife habitat including significant acreage enrolled in CRP. Efforts are still underway to fully assess the damage from the fire.

The people and nature of Douglas County are resilient and will build back from the fire, though it may take years to fully recover. Federal Farm Bill conservation programs including CRP and SAFE could provide important financial and technical assistance for fire recovery efforts.

Video by Ted Grudowski, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Conservation Northwest, and Foster Creek Conservation District.
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