Empresas y finanzas

USDA to pay $1.8 bln rent on Conservation Reserve

01/10/2008 - 22:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Landowners will receive $1.8 billion in rental payments for fiscal 2009 land idled in the long-term Conservation Reserve, said the U.S. Agriculture Department on Wednesday.

Some 34.7 million acres are enrolled in the reserve, which pays owners to retire fragile land voluntarily for 10 years or more. Average payment is $50.93 an acre and $4,105 per farm, said USDA. Fiscal 2009 opened on Wednesday.

The 2008 farm law sets an enrollment ceiling of 32 million acres for the reserve. Contracts on an estimated 1.2 million acres, most of it in wheat-growing states, expired at the end of September and are scheduled to expire on 3.9 million acres at the end of September 2009.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Christian Wiessner)