Federally Funded Conservation Halted by Shutdown

A national government shutdown in October 2025 brings nearly all federal agricultural conservation assistance to a hault, furloughing the vast majority of staff at the USDA’s key conservation agency and stopping payments to farmers.

Why it matters: Farmers and ranchers rely on the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for technical and financial help to implement conservation practices. With most staff furloughed, this critical support disappears, jeopardizing ongoing projects and preventing new ones from starting.

• This comes at a time when producers are already facing big challenges like disease, low crop prices, high debt, and trade disputes on the international sales stage.
• For context of the scope of work NRCS is involved in… in FY 2024, NRCS put $100 million in conservation into Iowa farms and communities. All that progressw is halted until Washington can come to an agreement.

By the numbers:

8,849 of 9,237 NRCS employees are furloughed during the shutdown.

• This leaves fewer than 500 staff working nationwide. Normally, there are about 475 employees working in Iowa alone, according to NRCS.

The Farm Service Agency (FSA), which administers payments for programs like the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), will furlough 6,377 staff.

What it means for Iowa farmers: All technical assistance for conservation programs is halted. Processing of payments for programs, including CRP, will cease. October is typically when these annual payments are issued and some farmers depend on them.

• Even short interruptions in payments could deepen farmers’ economic turmoil. ‘It costs money to run those combines,’ said Chad Hart, agricultural economist with Iowa State University, according to Successful Farming.

In addition, conservation planning activities and collaborative projects will be on pause. In a system that is already burdened by red tape, a slowdown is one more challenging barrier for farmers and landowners.

Conservation Funding deadlines: The Oct. 10 deadline for conservation funding, as of now, has not been changed. We encourage farmers to still try to meet the deadline in case it is not pushed back.

The bottom line: The government shutdown effectively freezes federal conservation efforts on private agricultural lands. While a skeleton crew remains to handle emergencies, the vast machinery that helps farmers protect soil, water, and wildlife resources is shut down, delaying payments and halting crucial technical support until funding is restored.

Meanwhile, private organizations like IAWA will continue working toward conservation goals, ready for USDA workers to come back online when negotiations in Washington are finished.

USDA’s “Lapse of Funding Plan” details the agency’s people and programs that will be affected. You can read the 55 page plan here.