Program FAQs

The Farmers for Soil Health (FSH) collaboration between the Soy Checkoff, National Corn Growers Association and Pork Checkoff, with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) serving as their designated administrative lead, was selected by USDA to receive a $95 million Advancing Markets for Producers (AMP) award. 

• FSH will support and expand technical assistance, enrollment and education programs in targeted states through grants associated with this project.
• FSH has established a new financial assistance program to incentivize cover crop adoption on over 1.3 million acres of crop fields in corn and soybean production. 
• Participating farmers can plant cover crops for one-year contracts that can be renewed for the duration of the FSH program.
• Farmers who plant cover crops will receive $35 per acre, per year, for up to 2,000 acres planted. This payment of $35 per acre, per year, will be paid to enrolled farmers who meet program requirements, regardless of prior cover crop history.
• FSH has created and launched an enrollment platform through our technology partner DTN. This includes a nationwide cover crop Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system.

Crop fields in the 20 participating states where corn, soybean, wheat, grain sorghum, or cotton are planted in the enrollment year, regardless of cover crop or history, are eligible to receive payments in exchange for planting cover crops and participating in the Farmers for Soil Health enrollment and Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system. 

The following 20 states are eligible to participate in the Farmers for Soil Health AMP Partnership: Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Farmers for Soil Health (FSH) payments can be stacked with other project payments if they are paying for something other than the cover crop practice. FSH payments cannot be stacked with USDA NRCS cover crop cost-share payments. FSH payments can be stacked with other state or private (non-federal) incentives and cost-share opportunities, as long as the other opportunities allow stacking.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) will issue payments to participating farmers. 

Farmers for Soil Health participants will receive $35 per acre, per year, for planting cover crops on up to 2,000 acres. Contracts can be renewed annually for the duration of the Farmers for Soil Health program, regardless of cover crop or history.

Payments are expected to be disbursed in the next year(s) following planting of a cover crop the previous fall. Cover crop planting will be verified by remote sensing through the Farmers for Soil Health Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) platform.

Participating farmers will need to provide the following information to their state FSH Technical Advisor (TA), or sign a data release form to allow their state TA to access and/or confirm the following information:

• Their USDA farm, tract and field numbers. Farmers without farm, tract and field numbers can obtain them from their local USDA Farm Service Agency field office.
• They must confirm with their state TA that they are not concurrently receiving USDA NRCS cover crop payments, including other AMP projects, on the same acres.
• Compliance with USDA Highly Erodible Land and Wetland Conservation requirements is required. If a producer’s FSA Subsidiary Print indicates “not filed” for this certification, the producer will need to complete form AD-1026 with FSA and provide an updated Subsidiary Print showing the status as “certified.”
• They will plant cover crop acres enrolled in the program according to state NRCS conservation practice standards for practice code 340 (cover crop), or an alternate practice standard pre-approved by USDA and Farmers for Soil Health partners.

Each field the farmer intends to enroll will need an approved NRCS CPA-52 Environmental Evaluation prior to implementing cover crops. FSH TAs will guide the farmer to identify the fields, enter necessary information, and submit to NRCS for approval. 

Prior to receiving payment, farmers will be required to upload the following documents:

• Signed W9
  • To enable FSH’s fiscal agent, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, to process farmer incentive payments.
• FSA Subsidiary Print
  • To determine Highly Erodible Land Conservation/Wetland Conservation (HELC/WC) compliance. Producers must also be listed as “certified” in the AD-1026 section, “compliant” in all conservation compliance sections, and “Not Applicable” as a foreign person.
• FSA Maps 
  • To enable FSH to verify and report farm, tract, and field numbers and confirm the enrolled acreage does not exceed the FSA defined acreage.
• FSA 156ez
  • To verify that the enrolled producer has operational control of the enrolled fields. Producers should appear as owner, operator, or other producer on this document. 

Enrollment in the FSH program through DTN is built on a foundation of security and transparency. A key requirement is that farmers are in control of their data and can decide who may access it and how it can be used. For every offer, either Farmers for Soil Health or others from the private sector will transparently inform the farmer if their data will be shared or used by or with any third party.

For the FSH AMP Partnership, any data a farmer provides will be used to ensure compliance with USDA and Farmers for Soil Health program requirements and for the measurement of carbon and other environmental impacts in the aggregate. This data will be anonymized and reported publicly only in aggregate. Specific farmer data associated with named individuals, addresses, collection points, etc., will not be sold, shared or distributed to any third parties without express permission from the farmer. Any third-party data sharing will be subject to a licensing agreement for disclosure to that party only.

Yes. The limit of planted cover crop fields to be enrolled in the Farmers for Soil Health program is 2,000 acres.

Winter wheat farmers are eligible if 1) they plant a cover crop before winter wheat planting, 2) plant a cover crop after winter wheat harvest and before an eligible cash crop, or 3) plant winter wheat as a cover crop before an eligible cash crop and manage it as a cover crop – i.e., terminate it and don’t bring it to harvest.