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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is launching a new conservation effort to boost the monarch butterfly population through habitat improvements.

The program will allow landowners to enroll up to 50,000 acres of farmland in the Conservation Reserve Program, through which the government pays farmers to remove environmentally sensitive land from production.

“This is a huge win for conservation in Wisconsin,” said Patty Edelburg, state executive director of the Farm Service Agency. While participation in CRP programs is down, Edelburg said the agency in recent years has had to turn away farmers looking to put their lands into conservation.

In order to qualify, land must have been planted with crops for at least four of the past six years. If accepted into the program, landowners agree to follow a conservation plan that calls for a mix of grasses and flowering plants — including milkweed — that monarchs, bees and other pollinators feed on.

These insects are critical to the production of dozens of common foods, from apples to vanilla.

“Pollinators are the lifeline between us and the foods we eat,” said Brandon Soldner, a conservation program specialist with the FSA.