conservation stewardship and business tools ( conservation measurement tool/ toolkit/ program...
TRANSCRIPT
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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