There is a deadline this Friday for getting signed up for a special Monarch Habitat EQIP contract that’s very different from the normal.  You don’t have to be a producer, it’s not a rental payment but an incentive for seeding so it’s a one-time payment.  So, anyone with an odd half acre minimum (like where farmstead building have come down but it’s not in row crop) can qualify for this assistance on paying for seed.  The land doesn’t have to have a cropping history.  You just have to get signed up by Friday to get into the pool.

    There is especially interest in signing up areas along the band of counties, two on either side of I-35 through MN, IA, MO, that is dubbed the “I-35 corridor” (which doesn’t mean attracting butterflies to get smashed on the window, it’s just a landmark) where they’re trying to boost the amount of food plants for larvae to assist the monarch migration north to Canada and the generations back south to Mexico.

    Get to your local NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) office to find out more details.