Building capacity to establish native wildlife habitat through the Conservation Reserve Program: engaging landowners and conservation contractors

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Building capacity to establish native wildlife habitat through the Conservation Reserve Program: engaging landowners and conservation contractors

Project Outcomes. Our project will increase the knowledge needed by landowners, and the skills needed by conservation contractors, to plant more successful prairie CRP, avoiding extra costs for landowners and maximizing the benefits of this critical program for rural communities. We seek to improve rural quality of life, economic sustainability of farms and agricultural businesses, and ecological sustainability through this education project.

The problem: The lack of native perennial vegetation on the upper Midwest landscape is linked to poor water quality, flooding, and pollinator decline, including the iconic Monarch butterfly. The federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) pays farmers to protect vulnerable soils and wildlife, and in the North Central Region, five million acres of CRP are enrolled in practices that re-establish native (i.e., prairie) vegetation, making this a crucial program for agricultural sustainability. Conservation contractors are the agricultural businesses that plant 75% - 95% of the prairie CRP in Iowa. Contractors tell us that they struggle with high capital investment in equipment, unpredictable demand, and difficulty reaching prospective customers. They are geographically dispersed with few opportunities for information-sharing and professional development.

Approach/Methods: Prairie CRP requires skill to implement successfully, and outcomes often fall short of expectations, partly because most landowners are unfamiliar with native vegetation, making it difficult to choose an appropriate conservation contractor. Private lands biologists and NRCS Soil Conservationists who work directly with landowners also report that conservation contractors are often in short supply. Some CRP plantings fall short of landowner objectives due to lack of contractor skills and knowledge of advanced techniques for high quality habitat.

Guided by an advisory committee of conservation contractors, we will engaging contractors and landowners with field days, winter meetings, and an online tool to link customers with contractors. We will document the successful methods of experienced contractors in a Technical Manual for Conservation Contractors. These activities are designed to help contractors improve their profitability while increasing their capacity to meet landowners' needs. We will help landowners make decisions with a Landowner's Guide to Conservation Contracting, and two webinars on the basics of planting and maintaining CRP.

We will extend the benefits of this project in the longer term by sharing the result of the project to landowner groups and the network of Native Seed Stakeholders and Service Providers that we have supported since 2019.

The project will serve conservation contractors and landowners seeking their services to improve wildlife habitat in corn-soy dominated agricultural landscapes funded through the USDA Conservation Reserve Program with relevance for other habitat initiatives and privately-funded projects. The near elimination of prairie in the Iowa landscape cannot be reversed, but the CRP program offers a way to mitigate that loss within our current agricultural system. We can do a better job of maximizing the benefits of that program for farmers and society by attending to the business needs of conservation contractors in this challenging setting , and educating landowners about what they can expect in a CRP prairie planting.

In 3-5 years, we want to see more successful CRP projects and more professional conservation contractors taking advantage of evidence-based practices. All landowners should have the opportunity to work with the skilled contractors needed to establish durable, high quality plantings if that is their goal.

Our audience of conservation contractors will include 123 business owners in our 2026 list of Iowa Native Seed and Service Providers.They offer various combinations of services including native seed sales, site preparation, planting, establishment mowing, herbicide application, brush management, and controlled burning. We believe many of them will want to engage in this project. Our 2025 phone survey of 13 contractors across Iowa revealed various concerns about the difficulty connecting with customers, unrealistic or impractical NRCS specifications, the unpredictability of demand for services based on the Farm Bill, and low profitability. Four of these contractors from various geographic regions, business sizes, and services graciously agreed to serve on our advisory committee (see letters of support) to help guide this project and we expect to be able to involve other contractors on an informal basis. We are offering something of value to them: opportunities to convene, discuss and problem-solve on contractor-identified issues, meet in person at interesting field sites, engage helpful research, and the opportunity to market their services to a wider range of clients.

Our initial audience of landowners will include the seventy landowners in east central Iowa on whose land we have conducted vegetation surveys or established prairie strip demonstration sites. We expect significant interest from nonprofit landowner and habitat groups.. We have collaborated with these groups in the past. More broadly, we hope to inform anyone who seeks assistance at USDA-FSA offices for CRP contracts in the upper Midwest, including farmer operators and landowners served by farm management companies.

Evidence that landowners will be willing to engage in this project comes from Farm Bill Biologists associated with Pheasants Forever and Xerces Society, who share their concern about a gap between landowner intentions and final outcomes. We have also heard from professional farm management companies that some of their customers-primarily the growing group of non-operating landowners-seek to establish more habitat, especially in marginally productive parts of their properties. While it is certain that many if not most land owners will spend the minimum possible on their CRP acres, a smaller but significant number have more ambitious expectations.

Learning Outcomes for contractors

• increased knowledge of common challenges and opportunities in their industry. Examples might include reaching new clients, or obtaining insurance for prescribed fire services.
• Increased knowledge of methods that have shown success on the ground and in applied research, that optimize habitat quality outcomes, performance and cost-effectiveness.

Action Outcomes for contractors

• Contractors express interest in trying a new method of planting or management, or marketing, or
• Express interest in more professional networking opportunities or provide topics for future field days and webinars

Learning outcomes - landowners/customers will increase

• Awareness of seed and service provider list
• Knowledge of what is possible in a prairie planting depending on cost and skill
• Knowledge of higher-end planting costs and benefits

Action outcomes- Landowners

• Landowners express interest in seeking appropriate contractors for their goals