The United States Department of Agriculture\u2019s Environmental Quality Incentives Program has been denied to Northern Islands resident seeking to farm in Pagan due to the Department of Public Lands\u2019 inaction on land control.<\/p>\n
Without DPL\u2019s action in fully implementing the homestead waiver act and the agricultural homestead laws as they are applied to Saipan, Tinian, and Rota and not the Northern Islands yet, USDA\u2019s EQIP has been denied until \u201cthe issue of land control\u201d is settled.<\/p>\n
USDA Natural Resources conservation Service Saipan Field Office district conservationist Kendal B. Hicks sent a letter to Northern Islands Mayor Jerome K. Aldan regarding EQIP.<\/p>\n
In Hicks\u2019 letter, he noted that the \u201ctwo of the most significant eligibility issues for Pagan farmers\u201d will be the requirement for prior, existing agricultural operations and the requirement for control of the land for the life of the EQIP contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cControl of the land can be achieved through a deed, lease, permit, etc\u2026a good, minimum land control length will be five years,\u201d Hicks said.<\/p>\n
The EQIP contract would have allowed Pagan farmers to receive financial and technical assistance to implement conservation practices.<\/p>\n
Hicks said that with a deed and survey map, the issue of land control should be settled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI say \u2018should be\u2019 because there needs to be a living person named on the deed as an owner\u2026at this point in time, control of land has been the major road block for USDA assistance on Pagan, or any other Northern Island,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Aldan said DPL needs to take action because Secretary Pete A. Tenorio is literally denying the Northern Islands beneficiary interest pursuant to law and it cannot continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is the village, homestead waiver act, and agricultural homestead laws just give us the waiver act and the agricultural until some of the requirements for village homesteads are amended,\u201d Aldan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of the inaction by DPL in fully implementing the homestead waiver act and the agricultural homestead laws as they are applied to all CNMI residents inclusive that includes Northern Islands\u2026It is a missed opportunity,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United States Department of Agriculture\u2019s Environmental Quality Incentives Program has been denied to Northern…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[175,5371,5936,117],"class_list":["post-206093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dpl","tag-eqip","tag-northern-islands-it","tag-usda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}