FSA-CRP data generation produces a file that includes some of the information that the Farm Service Agency uses in determining if a piece of land is eligible for inclusion in the Conservation Reserve Program.  The FSA-CRP data generation functions always process ALL data that currently resides in the template database.  In other words, there is no capability to generate FSA-CRP data for some subset of the data in your database.

In the template database, there are two macros associated with this process:

FSA-CRP – Create Data

FSA-CRP – Create Data and Export

Macro “FSA-CRP – Create Data” generates results and writes the results to the table named “FSA-CRP Data”, but does not export the contents of that table.  There is no user interaction after this macro is invoked.

Macro “FSA-CRP – Create Data and Export” generates results, writes the results to the table named “SYSTEM – FSA-CRP Data”, and automatically exports the contents of that table to a file named “fsacrp.txt”.  After this macro is invoked, a form is displayed where you must specify the desired output directory.  There is no option to specify the output file name.  If you want a different output file name, you must rename the file after it is created.

Each output record represents a map unit that occurs in a particular county.  The attribute values correspond to the dominant component of that map unit, based on percent composition.  If there is a tie for dominant component, the component with the lowest key value (cokey) is arbitrarily selected.

The process of determining what county or counties a map unit occurs in is a multi-part process.  If a map unit in a survey area has at least one county record in the Map Unit Area Overlap table (muaoverlap), a record is output for each county corresponding to that map unit.

If a map unit has no county record in the Map Unit Area Overlap table, but the corresponding survey area has at least one county record in the Legend Area Overlap table (laoverlap), a record is output for that map unit for each county corresponding to that survey area.

If a survey area has no corresponding county record in the Legend Area Overlap table, a record is output for that map unit for each record that the corresponding survey area has in the Survey Area-County Geographic Coincidence table (SYSTEM – Survey Area-County Geographic Coincidence).

If a map unit has no county record in the Map Unit Area Overlap table, and the corresponding survey area has no county record in the Legend Area Overlap table, and the corresponding survey area has no record in the Survey Area-County Geographic Coincidence table, NO record for that map unit is output.  If this occurs for any map unit, a warning dialog is displayed at the end of the data generation process.  Map units for which no corresponding county could be determined are logged in the file named “SYSTEM – FSA-CRP – Warnings and Rejects”.  If this occurs, this situation should be resolved before you forward your output to the proper recipients.  A quick way to fix this problem is to add the appropriate record or records to the Survey Area-County Geographic Coincidence table.  You should add one record for each county that coincides with the survey area in question.  Before doing this you should probably consult with whoever provided you with the soil data that you are using.

It is also possible that no dominant component for a map unit can be determined.  If this occurs for any map unit, a warning dialog is displayed at the end of the data generation process.  Map units for which no dominant component can be determined are also logged to the table named “SYSTEM – FSA-CRP – Warnings and Rejects”.  As long as a corresponding county can be determined, such a map unit is output, but the values of all FSA-CRP criteria attributes will be null.  Again, if this occurs, you should probably check with the person who provided you with the soil data that you are using, before you forward your output to the proper recipients.

The FSA-CRP data generation process can act on data that resides in the current template database (i.e. local tables), or it can act on data that resides in an external template database (i.e. attached tables).  The reason for this is that we wanted to provide a new template that includes the FSA-CRP data generation functions, but we didn’t want to force data providers to have to re-download data and provide new soil databases.

This means that you can obtain a new version of the template that contains the new FSA-CRP data generation functions, and use that template to attach to your existing soil database in order to create the FSA-CRP data.  In order to run the FSA-CRP data generation functions against an attached database, you must first run the macro named “Access External Soil Database” to attach to the soil tables in the external template database.  See the section titled “Access External Soil Database” in the report titled “How to Understand and Use this Database”, for more information.

This brief overview does not discuss the derivation of any of the FSA-CRP criteria attributes.  If you want more details about the actual derivation of these attributes, please contact the Soils Hotline at the National Soil Survey Center in Lincoln NE.  See the section titled “Contacting Support” in the report titled “How to Understand and Use this Database”.