The Farmland Stewardship Program helps producers reduce operating expenses and generate new sources of stable, ongoing income by implementing practices that are funded through a multitude of agriculture, conservation, environmental protection & restoration, energy conservation, trade promotion, small business assistance and rural economic development programs.

The Farmland Stewardship Program is a blending tool that allows agricultural producers throughout the country greater access to sound conservation and profit improvement measures.  It may be used to implement, or combine together, the features of multiple programs at the federal, state and/or local levels.  It also allows existing conservation programs to be more precisely tailored to and targeted at the specific conservation needs and opportunities presented by individual parcels of property.  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." 

The Farmland Stewardship Program provides "one-stop conservation" to tie together the many diverse conservation programs available from all levels of government and the private sector.  It holds the potential to make existing conservation programs much more efficient and cost effective.  It also makes existing programs much more accessible to private landowners.  As a result, it can greatly expand conservation opportunities throughout the U.S.  

The Farmland Stewardship Program is being carried out through public-private and federal, state and local "partnerships."  The agreements will be administered and overseen by the Secretary of Agriculture, in partnership with other federal, state and/or local agencies whose programs are incorporated into the agreements, and carried out on the ground through local conservation districts, nonprofit organizations, technical service providers, extension services or local offices of a participating agency.   

The Farmland Stewardship Agreement (FSA) is as an all-encompassing service contract; it "hires" a private landowner, as a "vendor," to perform one or more specific services.  For example: 

          It provides landowners with incentives to protect and maintain, and improve, the natural resources that exist on their lands through conservation programs at the local, state or federal level. The agreements designate important natural resources on a property for special attention and care, proscribing recommended management practices for the landowner to carry out in order to maintain, care for and improve these resources.  It will allow landowners to maintain intact habitat and restore native habitat on properties. 

          Landowners also can be hired to: 1) remove invasive species and continue management of land and water resources in a way that prevents invasives from being re‑introduced; 2) install BMPs or other recommended practices to eliminate impacts on natural areas outside their property boundaries, 3) use their property for water retention, 4)dedicate portions of their property as buffer strips or filter strips, 5) leave open space between developed areas and natural areas, or 6) establish experimental or innovative crops, or make experimental or innovative use of existing crops and crop residues, to produce "biofuels" and "bioproducts" to help meet the nation's energy needs and create consumer products that produce less pollution, less waste and have less impact on the environment. 

          In short, if there is something society wants a private landowner to do, the FSP offers a way to "hire" a landowner to do it.  The Farmland Stewardship Program will provide payments for maintaining the natural features of a property that society wishes to protect –  not on what a landowner gives up.  Hence, the FSP provides a means of creating a market value for these natural features.  

Compensation will include:

          Direct fees for services, based on the cost of providing each service. These fees may be set by adopting private sector market prices for the performance of similar services or by competitive bidding. 

          Annual base payment, plus annual per acre stewardship fees, similar to those now offered by the USDA's Conservation Reserve Program. 

The agreements compensate the landowner for all services provided.  Incentives, in the form of "bonus payments," will be provided for improvements that are made to the natural resources covered by agreements that have a duration in excess of 10 years. Reviews of agreements to determine if "bonus payments" are to be paid will be made every five years. 

The Farmland Stewardship Program gives the Secretary of Agriculture the flexibility to review existing conservation programs and, on a case-by-case basis, adapt them to address specific needs and opportunities.  If the Farmland Stewardship Agreement is consistent with the purposes of that conservation program, an exception may be granted under specific circumstances and in specific situations at the discretion of the Secretary to modify limitations, conditions and/or requirements that prevent the program from carrying out its intended purposes on a specific parcel of land.