The Agriculture Department is accepting 3.4 million acres into the land-idling Conservation Reserve Program following the first general signup in four years.

President Donald Trump’s election-year budget proposes $1 trillion in infrastructure spending, including $25 billion earmarked for rural America, while reprising recommendations for slashing farm programs and nutrition assistance.

The Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is beginning to use a new tool this week to help staff implement conservation programs more smoothly.

In what is setting up to be an historic week, the House is poised to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement after a bitter debate over the impeachment of President Donald Trump, and lawmakers also are rushing to pass legislation to fund the government for fiscal 2020.

Landowners can start applying Monday to enroll acreage in the Conservation Reserve Program under what will be the first general signup in four years.

U.S. dairy farmers are finally experiencing some price relief after four years of an economic downturn in which many farmers struggled to break even. But ongoing economic pressures will require farmers to leave no stone unturned as they seek to become more resilient.

Comments are due Nov. 21 on conservation practice standards.

If you’d like to see changes in conservation practice standards, now’s your chance. Until April 25, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is accepting comments as part of its review of conservation practice standards mandated by the 2018 Farm Bill and designed to improve the standards and increase flexibility.