The U.S. Department of Agriculture is paying farmers and ranchers in nine states to open their land to public hunting and fishing, under a new round of grants announced this week.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service said Tuesday that it awarded about $21 million for 10 projects through the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, known as VPA-HIP. The projects are in Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.
The money adds to $49 million announced in July for 19 projects. Between the two rounds, NRCS has awarded $70 million for 29 projects.
How the program works
VPA-HIP sends grants to state and tribal governments, which use the money to pay private landowners who allow the public onto their property for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation. Landowners keep ownership and control of the land. Awards in the new round range from about $833,000 to $3 million and run for up to three years. Up to 25% of a grant can go toward habitat improvements on the enrolled land.
Funding for the program was restored by the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, the budget law Congress passed last year.
“The Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program enables us to work with state and tribal partners to provide recreational access to private lands, support rural communities and ensure we are keeping working land in working hands,” said NRCS Chief Colton L. Buckley.
Where the money goes
South Carolina received $1,074,400. The state plans to lease waterfowl blinds for guided hunts and to run guided deer hunts on farms where deer damage crops, according to NRCS.
Kansas plans to expand its walk-in hunting and fishing programs by about 40,000 acres of hunting land, 250 acres of fishing access and two river access sites, with 180 new landowner enrollments, NRCS said.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma will use its grant to start a tribal public access program in southeastern Oklahoma. Texas Parks and Wildlife plans more public hunting areas and days, more drawn-hunt permits on private land and new leased river access sites for fishing and paddling.
Demand is rising
Aaron Field of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, a sportsmen’s conservation group, said this year’s total exceeds what the program received over the five years of the 2018 farm bill. He called VPA-HIP the “backbone of walk-in access” programs across the country. The group says each federal dollar spent on the program returns more than $8 to rural economies through hunting and fishing spending. The program has operated since 2008.
Arkansas offers an example of demand. Its waterfowl rice program, which leases flooded rice fields for public duck hunting at 47 locations, averaged 686 applicants a week in the 2025-26 season, up from 467 and 536 in the two seasons before, the partnership reported.
The bottom line
Most land in the United States is privately owned, and in much of the Plains and the South there is little public ground within driving distance. This program respects property rights. Landowners choose to enroll, set the terms through their state and get paid for it, and hunters get a place to go without a federal land grab.
It also returns money to rural towns. Hunters buy gas, meals, ammunition and motel rooms, and farmers earn income from ground they already own.
Hunters and anglers in the nine states should watch their state wildlife agency’s website for newly enrolled walk-in areas this season and next. Landowners interested in leasing access should contact their state wildlife agency or local NRCS office.