EQIP Eligibility

Producer Eligibility

To participate in EQIP, an applicant must be an individual, entity or joint operation and meet the following criteria:

• Be an agricultural producer with an annual minimum of $1,000 of agricultural products produced and/or sold from the operation, except for forestry operations;
• Have an interest in the farming or forestry operation associated with the land being enrolled;
• Have control of the land for the term of the proposed contract. Applicants for structural or vegetative practices must submit a written concurrence by the landowner.
• Be in compliance with provisions for protecting tenants and sharecroppers, including sharing EQIP payments on a fair and equitable basis;
• Be in compliance with the highly erodible land and wetland conservation provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985;
• Be within the $300,000 limitation in EQIP payments received during any six-year period;
• Be in compliance with the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) requirements (a person or entity is not eligible if the three-year average AGI exceeds $1 million with less than 66.66% derived from farming or forestry sources).
• Producers with forestland are exempt from the $1,000 minimum annual sales, but must meet the other criteria, and have one of the following:
  • a forest management plan or forest stewardship plan;
• Federal and state governments and political subdivisions are NOT eligible; however land that they own may be eligible if leased to an eligible agricultural producer.

Land Eligibility

The land being offered for enrollment in EQIP must meet the following criteria:

• Be used in agricultural and non-industrial private forest land, and other land on which agricultural products, livestock, or forest related products are produced and resource concerns may be addressed.
• If applying for water conservation and irrigation practices, the land must have been irrigated for 2 of the last 5 years;
• Meet any of the following land ownership and control criteria:
  • Privately owned;
  • Public land where all of the following apply;
    • under private control for the contract period and included in the participant’s operating unit;
    • where installation of conservation practices will contribute to an improvement in the identified natural resource concern
    • Indian land.
• Evidence of control of land
  • Deed or other evidence of land ownership
  • Lease
  • Other written authorization from the landowner showing control of land for the life of the contract.
• Land enrolled in other Conservation Programs
  • Land enrolled in other USDA programs cannot receive EQIP benefits for the same practice on the same land.
     

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