The Congress passed the Agricultural Improvement Act of 2018, commonly known as the 2018 Farm Bill, in December 2018. This bill modifies and reauthorizes several agricultural and natural resource assistance programs for the next five years. In this article, we present some of the forestry related programs and their updates in the 2018 Farm Bill that are relevant for forest landowners.
The Farm Bill 2018 specifies several provisions to provide financial and technical assistance to forest landowners primarily under three laws: the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act, the Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Research Act, and the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (CRS, 2019). This updated bill reauthorizes the Healthy Forests Reserve Program, Rural Revitalization Technology, National Forest Foundation, and funding for implementing statewide forest resource assessments. On the other hand, several conservation and energy programs also include forestry and forest landowners in their program scope and eligibility.
This article is brought to you by North Carolina State University Extension. View the full table of forestry-specific programs within the farm bill here: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/whats-in-the-farm-bill-2018-for-forest-landowners?x=77632#section_heading_14083