Definition: The Farmland Stewardship Program is a "blending tool" that uses a "service contract" to combine, tie together or coordinate two or more different conservation or regulatory programs into a single agreement with a single application. The agreement tailors these programs to the specific needs, opportunities and challenges offered by individual parcels of land, and overcomes administrative obstacles that previously may have limited the use of these programs on eligible agricultural lands. The Farmland Stewardship Program can be used as a "stand-alone" program to provide incentive payments to producers to implement conservation practices on private lands, or it can be used to complement and work together with any other program or programs, including local and private programs. When existing programs do not address a particular need on a specific property, the Farmland Stewardship Program can be used to "fill in the gaps."

Service contract: The term "service contract" means "a legally binding agreement between two parties, whereby one party agrees to perform one or more services, according to criteria spelled out in the contract, and the other party agrees to pay the first party for the service(s) rendered."

A Farmland Stewardship Agreement will operate in all respects as a service contract and, as such, will provide a government agency and the "contracting agencies" working on behalf of the government agency with the opportunity to contract with an owner or operator of eligible land to perform one or more specific services for a fee based on market rates for each service rendered. Any agency participating in the Farmland Stewardship Program that has the authority to enter into contracts and to expend public funds under such contracts may enter into or participate in the funding of an agreement.