JCB7700 - 10/15/2025 07:12

I love my CRP ground. I no longer have to listen to a whiney azz renting farmer about how tough it is to make a living farming while his $90K one year old diesel truck sits idling in my driveway while he hands me the rent check. The sob stories got to be too much. Times are getting so tough that he can't trade his S series combine in every 3 years and is still running 3 quad tracks that are 5 or more years old. He was only able to make a few trips to his lake front home the last few years as southern rust, tar spot and the constant monitoring of pivots occupied all of his time. Oh the horror.

My CRP gave me a nice bump in income. In my area here in Michigan $150 to $175 per acre is the norm for rent to a grain farmer. If you rent to a dairy you can get in the $250 to as much as $300 range. I won't rent to dairies as they practice a scorched earth policy when it comes to renting your ground. But the one nice thing about these big dairies is that they bump up the county average for rental rates when calculating the CRP rental rate.

I signed my farm to CRP last fall to a 10 year contract. Because my ground is on the top end of being classified as highly erodible i received $219 per acre with a 10% sign on bonus. I also got cost sharing on the seed and can plant 10% of my acres to food plots, that also includes cost sharing on seed. Pretty good deal if you ask me.