Back in the 90's, my brother and I bought a farm, and after doing some pencil work, decided to enroll it in CRP, and let that pay for it........which it did. I had quit row crop farming at that time, and was only growing tobacco and running a small herd of beef cattle, so I didn't need much land to do that. CRP prices here are all over the board, depending on the type of land, and the county it's in. I like CRP for the wildlife, and we still had 16 acres enrolled at $125 an acre on one farm. It was up for re-enrollment this year, and they offered around $90 an acre to keep it in. As we can get twice that much for crop rent, I decided to take it out of CRP and crop it.
If I had a farm that I wanted to use exclusively for the wildlife, and didn't need the income, CRP would be the way to go. Also, in some cases, if you have the right soil type, and are on HEL, you can probably get more money on CRP payments than you can from crop or pasture rent, or from farming it yourself. I know of some people here who are getting paid $200 an acre or more for some CRP land.
