(Des Moines)--Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig Monday announced the launch of the Greater Des Moines Watershed Program, a targeted initiative to accelerate and scale up the use of conservation practices across 22 counties upstream from the Des Moines metro.
Area counties in the program include Emmet, Clay, Dickinson, Kossuth and Palo Alto.
The program will support a series of conservation incentives, cost-share and targeted investments to improve water quality upstream and downstream.
The first phase of the program enhances cover crop incentives for farmers and landowners in the Greater Des Moines watershed, increasing cost-share payments for both new and existing cover crop users to $25 per acre and increasing the maximum eligible acreage to 500 acres per farmer or landowner. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship is investing an additional $2.5 million in this program with the goal of doubling cover crop adoption across the watershed.
The program was created as part of the Farm to Faucet water quality package signed into law by Gov. Kim Reynolds on June 1.
