LITTLE ROCK - A new agreement between the USDA Farm Service Agency and the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission may bring money to farmers interested in helping wildlife such as the northern bobwhite quail.

On Tuesday, AGFC Director Scott Henderson and FSA State Executive Director Len E. Blaylock Jr. signed an agreement for Continuous Practice 33. Under the program, Arkansas farmers will be able to enroll up to 12,000 acres as buffer zones for wildlife. The enrollment period will continue until all 12,000 acres are assigned or until the end of 2007.

These buffer zones will be placed around cropland to create habitat for quail, grassland birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, and to reduce erosion and protect water quality. CP33 is part of the USDA Farm Service Agency’s Conservation Reserve Program.

Under this program, the FSA will pay farmers $100 for each acre they enroll, plus up to $65 per acre for each year of the 10-year contracts. In return, farmers will agree to plant grasses and shrubs to restore native wildlife populations. Through cost-sharing and incentive payments, these landowners will only have to pay 10 percent of the planting costs.

Buffers may be from 30 feet to 120 feet wide, and up to 10 percent of a buffer may be planted in fruit- and seed-bearing shrubs. AGFC Quail Program Coordinator Brad Carner said, “These field buffers can provide critical nesting and brood-rearing habitat for northern bobwhite quail, and they can be used as travel corridors for many songbirds and upland species between patches of habitat that were isolated and unused.”

The bobwhite population has dropped 62 percent in the Southeast, with a similar decline in Arkansas. The national population dropped from 59 million in 1980 to 20 million in 1999.

“If we are going to restore quail in the agricultural landscape of the state, now is the time and partnering with the U.S. Department of Agriculture is the means,” said David Long, agricultural liaison for the AGFC. “CP33 will provide a major jump-start in this effort. The Commission has restored deer, turkey, bear and elk to the Arkansas landscape. Now it’s time to save the bobwhite. Only with the help of private landowners and our conservation partners can we return bobwhites to farms across Arkansas.”