The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) promotes coordination of NRCS conservation activities with partners that offer value-added contributions that expand our collective ability to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) seeks to coinvest with RCPP partners to implement projects that demonstrate innovative solutions to conservation challenges and provide measurable improvements and outcomes tied to the resource concerns they seek to address.
Donor Name: U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline (mm/dd/yyyy): 04/13/2022
Grant Size: $250,000
Details:
Through RCPP, partners propose projects—using guidance contained in this notice—that generate conservation benefits by addressing specific natural resource objectives in a state/multistate area or address one or more primary resource concerns within a critical conservation area (CCA) for the benefit of eligible agricultural producers and landowners.
NRCS and partners design, implement and evaluate RCPP projects on agricultural and non-industrial private forest land. NRCS coinvests in RCPP projects selected through a competitive application process that evaluates applications based on four criteria: impact, partner contributions, innovation, and partnerships and management.
The RCPP AFA component is intended to support project structures and approaches that cannot be carried out as effectively through RCPP Classic. RCPP AFA applicants must describe the innovative nature of the conservation approach they are proposing to justify potential funding through an RCPP AFA rather than RCPP Classic. Additionally, applicants should consider the additional administrative and technical assistance responsibilities that accompany receipt of an RCPP AFA award.
The Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 amendments to RCPP provides examples of project types that might be implemented through RCPP AFA:
- Projects that use innovative approaches to leverage the Federal investment in conservation;
- Projects that deploy a pay-for-performance conservation approach;
- Projects that seek large-scale infrastructure investments that generate conservation benefits for agricultural producers and nonindustrial private forest owners.
Funding Information
The maximum funding (combined financial and technical assistance) available for any project selected under this RCPP AFA announcement is $10 million. The minimum funding amount is $250,000.
Eligibility Criteria
Entities that are classified as one of the following organizational types can serve as an eligible RCPP partner:
- An agricultural or silvicultural producer association or other group of producers.
- A State or unit of local government.
- An Indian Tribe.
- A farmer cooperative.
- A water district, irrigation district, acequia, rural water district or association, or other organization with specific water delivery authority to agricultural producers.
- A municipal water or wastewater treatment entity.
- An institution of higher education.
- An organization or entity with an established history of working cooperatively with producers on agricultural land, as determined by NRCS, to address:
- Local conservation priorities related to agricultural production, wildlife habitat development, or nonindustrial private forest land management; or
- Critical watershed-scale soil erosion, water quality, sediment reduction, or other natural resource issues.
- An entity, such as an Indian Tribe, State government, local government, or a nongovernmental organization that has a farmland or grassland protection program that purchases agricultural land easements.
A conservation district. Eligible partners can serve as a lead partner.
Each project must have a single lead partner, which is the entity that submits an RCPP proposal and negotiates a PPA with NRCS. The lead partner is ultimately responsible for ensuring completion of project deliverables, delivering all partner contributions, and assessing project outcomes.
Eligible partners, whether the lead partner or not, may be awarded a supplemental agreement, as agreed to in the PPA, to carry out technical assistance activities, facilitate the conveyance of an easement to an eligible entity by a producer, implement an eligible watershed operations activity, or facilitate the implementation of an eligible activity as determined by NRCS. Partners holding supplemental agreement awards assume responsibility for all deliverables under such awards.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.