1. USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer
Conservation Stewardship and Business Tools (Conservation Measurement Tool/ Toolkit/Program Contracts System)
August 2009
USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer

2. Discussion Topics Conservation Stewardship Plan Toolkit Setup
Program Contracts System (ProTracts) Setup
Program Workflow with Programs Business Tools
Planning in Toolkit
Managing Applications in ProTracts
Determining Conservation Measurement Tool (CMT)
Performance Points

3. Conservation Stewardship Plan
The Conservation Stewardship Plan contains:
A record of the participant’s decisions
that describe the schedule of additional
conservation activities to be installed and
adopted to achieve additional
conservation performance improvement
under the conservation stewardship
contract. 3 3

4. Conservation Stewardship Plan
Basis for the plan:
Conservation Performance Summary Report
form the CMT.
Field Verification 4 4

5. Conservation Stewardship Plan
Conservation Stewardship Plan - Individual
activities
Contract - Conservation Performance
Payment Points by land use and
supplemental payment only
Mary will explain in more detail later 5 5

6. Conservation Stewardship Plan
The Conservation Stewardship Plan will be
completed after on-site field verification for
approved applications, and
Before contract obligation 6 6

7. Conservation Stewardship Plan
Will contain:
New Enhancements
New practices offered through Conservation Stewardship
Program (CSP) - to meet additional stewardship thresholds
Agreed to practices not offered through CSP
I will expand on each one 7 7

8. Enhancements Planned individually (80 new activity codes)
Adjust acres to the planned amount
accepted by the applicant
Customized narratives if needed
Reference the job sheet 8 8

9. Conservation Practices To Meet Additional Stewardship Thresholds
Available for the explicit purpose of encouraging
producers to meet additional stewardship thresholds.
Originally selected with the applicant in the office.
Certified adequate to meet stewardship threshold
requirements after field verification
Scheduled any year of the contract
Report to Progress Reporting System (PRS) 9 9

10. Other Practices Needed
Practices “agreed to” by the applicant not offered
through CSP:
Are documented in the Conservation
Stewardship Plan
Will use Code - Progress Reporting System
(CTA)
Do not duplicate the information in the
operator’s farm plan
If a producer sign-up for cost share through another program then the practice code will be changed and uploaded to Protracts. Foe example, if a producer agrees to install a structural practice then you will go back to the Stewardship Plan and change the code from CTA to EQIP perhaps. Then you use the practice from Stewardship Plan to upload to Protracts contract application. 10 10

11. Conservation Stewardship Plan
By signing Form NRCS-CPA Appendix
Conservation Stewardship Plan
Conservation Stewardship Contract
Conservation performance levels identified
on the Conservation Performance Summary
Report
The participant agrees to the conservation plan as part of the contract and to maintain existing conservation performance levels and achieve additional conservation performance levels. 11 11

12. Conservation Stewardship Plan
Signatures
Applicant- Encouraged
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)
designated conservationist- required
(to certify the technical adequacy of the plan conservation treatment) 12 12

13. Operation Adjustments
Annual contract reviews need to be done early enough in the year to allow for any needed substitutions before payments and potential non compliance.
Enhancements may be replaced with similar enhancements as long as the conservation performance estimated by CMT is equal to or better than the conservation performance at enrollment.
Re-run the CMT 13 13

14. Operation Adjustments
Conservation Performance Summary Report accepted by the applicant
Update Conservation Stewardship Plan
An enhancement replacement that results in a decline below the conservation performance level will not be allowed.
Follow policy in Title 440-Conservation Programs Manual (CPM) – Part 512, Section 14 14

15. Supporting Information Maintained With The Participant’s Plan
Conservation Performance Summary Report from CMT (Inventory resource, benchmark data, new activities)
Plan map
Documentation for transition to organic farming
On-farm research and demos or pilot project proposal
State supplemental documents
Resource Conserving Crop Rotation (RCCR) rotation information (job sheet)
Other documentation listed on Title 440 – CPM, Part 512,
Section 15 15

16. Conservation Stewardship Plan
No upload to Protracts
One Conservation Stewardship Plan supports all stewardship contracts 16 16

17. Operation and Maintenance
The participant will operate and maintain:
Existing activities on the operation to at least
meet the level of conservation performance
identify at the time of application on the
Conservation Performance Summary Report
for the contract period.
Additional conservation activities installed
and adopted over the term of the contract. 17 17

18. ProTracts
Toolkit
CMT

19. Toolkit Set Up Toolkit permissions must be granted to any new users.
Suggestion: Turn off prior year security enhancements during the signup prior to doing Refresh Domain Data to load the new enhancements for 2009 from conservation practice standards (CPS)
This will have no impact to existing contracts.
We will let you know when the enhancements are
ready.
Optional: Add CSP nonindustrial private forest land (NIPF) to local land uses.
No cost list needed for Toolkit.

20. Stewardship & Security Enhancements in Toolkit

21. Application and Appendix from ProTracts
See Title 440, Part 512, Section
for policy on applications.
Contract numbers will be “81”

22. New Application Data

23. Determine Applicant and Land Eligibility
Participants will need to meet conservation
adjusted gross income (AGI) ($1 mil), have
Form AD-1026 on file, meet highly erodible land/
wetland conservation
(HEL/WC), and have a land
association
Eligibility matrix will be posted
on ProTracts Home Page soon

24. Determine Applicant and Land Eligibility
Applicants should have farm records on file with
the Farm Service Agency (FSA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2010.
Non-traditional applicants may need to be added to
Service Center Information Management System (SCIMS)
FSA expects to do SCIMS and Farm Records Rollover
about September 19
Obligations will occur in FY 2010 and will use FY 2010
eligibility after FSA rollover

25. Determine Applicant and Land Eligibility
Participants with active CSP 2002 contracts are
not eligible to participate in CSP 2008 on the
same land units.
Look at other ProTracts programs and their responses on the Form NRCS-CPA-1200 question 8

26. Due Diligence on Other Program Participation
CPM, Part 508, Section Prohibited Payments
A. Prohibited Activities
B. Preventing Duplicate Payments
(1) A program applicant or participant may not schedule the installation of new enhancements or practices through CSP that are earning financial assistance payments through any other U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) conservation program on the same land at the same time. Program applicants will complete the Conservation Performance Summary Report Duplicate Payments Addendum during the application process.

27. Farms Operated
New button that will determine if the participant is associated with farms in FSA farm records.
At least one farm must be returned to set an application to pre-approved and select the application for funding.

28. Land Description
Will select one of the land uses that will be used in Conservation Measurement Tool (CMT)
Data must be completed before accessing CMT
Before CMT is available please enter estimated acres. CMT will over-write this data

29. Basic Resource Inventory

30. Required Data for Linkage to CMT
Land ownership and lease information completed
Land uses selected on Legal Description tab
Fund code selected
Application status is eligible

31. Application Status = Eligible
See Title 440 – CPM, Part 512, Section and
Section (c)
This is not related to FSA eligibility criteria and is set in Manage Applications
Do not have to meet “other” criteria to access CMT which include:
Stewardship Threshold
Control of Land
Farm Operator

32. ProTracts Data to CMT Customer, contract number, address, funding pool
name and resource concerns.

33. Using CMT Last data saved wins. Data can be saved incrementally.
Be aware of concurrency issues so only one person running CMT per application at one time.
Changing status to pre-approved locks the data and disables link to CMT.
Changing status back to eligible requires that CMT be accessed again and data must be submitted back to ProTracts.

34. Linkage Back From CMT

35. CMT to ProTracts Data Share
Submit will transfer the following to ProTracts:
Total eligible acres
Total performance points
Acres by land use
Performance points per land use
RCCR acres and start date
Data for calculation in ProTracts of the
tie-breaker

36. CMT Data in ProTracts
Data will be synched up with CMT submit

37. Managing the Signup
Application Maintenance – Ranking searches for Ranked or Unranked Applications

38. Managing the Signup
Changing application status through selection of funding

39. Tie-Breaker
Cropland acre/total operation acres x cropland conservation performance payment points
+ pastureland acres/total operation acres x pastureland conservation performance payment points
+ rangeland acres/ total operation acres x rangeland conservation performance payment points
= tie-breaker.

40. Duplications Revisited
The following warning message will appear when setting applications to pre-approved.
Applicants with separate operations (Agricultural Lands and/or NIPF) may have separate applications; however, the same acres cannot be duplicated.
Warning! This applicant has the following active CSP contracts <contract number>. Land enrolled in the CSP is ineligible for enrollment in the CSP. Verification that this application is on different land units is required prior to setting this application to pre-approved.

41. Tentative Selection for Funding
ProTracts Rules for setting applications to
pre-approved:
CMT scores present for all applicable land uses
Livestock, crop, and organic question answered
Minimum one farm associated with participants
Tie-breaker present
Warning regarding Conservation Security Program participation

42. Application Costs and Payment Rates
Linked data from CMT to generate payment rates for
pre-approved applications

43. Payment Rates
Cost per point will be added to ProTracts after the “Payment Discovery Period”
Further information will be provided on next steps once the rate is available

44. Application Costs and Payment Rates
Calculate button will allow
auto-generation of the
contract items and
payment rates for printing
on Form NRCS-CPA-1155

45. On-Site Field Verification
Verification in the field.
Enter date visit was completed.
Date will be required to approve an application
and will be stored in contract history.

46. Planning Enhancements in Toolkit
Conventional planning in Toolkit

47. CSP and Toolkit A new CSP Toolkit folder will be required for the
applicants
Land units should NOT be merged
One Stewardship plan should support all
Stewardship contracts (ag operation and NIPF)
Practices needed to meet stewardship threshold
requirements and  not offered through CSP will be
planned in the Stewardship Plan as CTA

48. Planning Enhancements in Toolkit
National narratives provided

49. Plan Maps Basic plan maps with treatment unit boundaries
and attribute labels
Include program in the local land use data field i.e., CSP - NIPF

50. Toolkit Plan
Plan will be generated with details on enhancements that are available on the CMT Conservation Performance Summary Report
Plan is signed by the designated conservationist with voluntary participant signature
The plan is incorporated by reference in the CSP appendix

51. Approving Applications
Participant eligibility is validated
At least one farm present
At least one item in contract
Participant payment limitations are validated
Field verification is completed

52. ProTracts Contracting
Generate Form NRCS-CPA-1155

53. ProTracts Contracting
See Title 440 CPM, Part 512, Section for steps in approving and signing contract documents.
Participant will sign Form NRCS-CPA-1202 ,
Form NRCS-CPA-1155, and the appendix.
CSP obligations will go through standard financial management obligation second level review in Fund Manager.

54. Payment Limitations Enforced in ProTracts
Title CPM – Part Section Payment Limitations
Person or Legal Entity Limitations
Regardless of the number of contracts entered into under
the program, a person or legal entity may not receive, directly or indirectly, payments that, in the aggregate, exceed:
(i) $40,000 during any fiscal year for all conservation stewardship contracts entered into, and
$200,000 for all conservation stewardship contracts
entered into during any five-year period
(2) The above limitations exclude funding arrangements with federally recognized Indian tribes or Alaska Native corporations as described in Title 440, CPM, Part 508, Section (C).

55. Obligating Contracts
Will store history of the application from the ProTracts and CMT evaluation

56. Managing and Modifying Contracts

57. Annual Reminder Letters
Send annual practice reminder letters at the
beginning of the calendar year.

58. Contract Reviews Title 440, CPM, Part 508, Section
Follow guidance in Title CPM, Part 512, Section Annual reviews will be completed early enough in the year to allow for completion of any necessary corrective actions prior to issuance of the annual payment.

59. Annual Payments Title 440 – CPM , Part 508, Section 508.90 - Payment
Types
Annual Payment
Supplemental Payment
Section  - Timing of Payments
(1) The NRCS will make annual and supplemental
payments as soon as practicable after October 1 of each
year for activities carried out in the previous year.

60. Annual Payments

61. Questions?

62. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or a part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA's TARGET Center at (202) (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination write to USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C or call (800) (voice) or (202) (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer.