PA Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)

The Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is designed to support agricultural producers and forestland owners in maintaining and enhancing their existing conservation efforts. CSP aims to strengthen operations by helping establish land management goals such as improving grazing conditions, increasing crop yields, and developing wildlife habitats. The program offers customized CSP plans that can include timely planting of cover crops, development of grazing plans to enhance forage base, implementation of no-till practices to reduce erosion, and management of forested areas for wildlife benefit. CSP rewards participants for conservation performance, with higher performance leading to higher payments. The program emphasizes the importance of soil, water, air, plant, animal (domestic and wildlife), and energy conservation, encouraging participants to adopt additional conservation activities to address priority resource concerns. Beginning in 2020, CSP includes an option for operations that are certified organic or transitioning to organic, provided at least 75% of the operation meets these criteria.