Guides · Updated September 2026
The FY2026 USDA feral swine window is closed: what happens now for a landowner
The short answer: the FY2026 window for USDA's Feral Swine Eradication and Control Pilot Program is closed. It closed September 25, 2026 at 11:59 pm, after USDA extended the original September 21 deadline.
The round carried an estimated $35 million, up to 25 awards of $75,000 to $3 million. A landowner never applied for it directly. Only partner organizations could: state and local governments, tribes, universities, nonprofits.
The help reaches you through those partners, inside designated project areas, once they are selected and working. So if you searched for how to apply, there is nothing to file.
As of September 30, 2026, the NRCS program page lists no new window, and this page will not guess at one. A new one would show up there and at your local NRCS office.
What happens between now and the first trap on your place
The notice laid out a timeline and called every date an estimate subject to change. As posted in July, NRCS planned to select partners by October 23, 2026 and execute awards by December 2026.
Projects were written to run four to five years from an estimated December 2026 start, concluding by September 30, 2031. That is the plan as posted, not a promise.
Per the NRCS FAQ, once selected partners start work on the projects, landowners can reach out to the partners for assistance. Not before.
The Knox, Haskell and Baylor project page expects the partner to run a trap loan program: deliver traps, help you set them, supply the first bait. APHIS Wildlife Services steps in when a participating landowner requests removal.
The pilot project areas, and the four in Texas
The NRCS FSCP program page lists 32 project areas across 14 states. They are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
Texas has four: Brown-Coleman-Runnels, Fannin-Lamar-Red River, Knox-Haskell-Baylor, and Sherman. Outside those project areas, this round is not set up to reach your place.
What the money can and cannot pay for, and who can be paid
APHIS keeps operational control of all trapping. Producer assistance can pay for training, equipment, and trapping operations that meet APHIS standards.
NRCS money cannot pay for ground shooting, aerial gunning, or any form of hunting. Nor for euthanasia, drones, snares, cable restraints, foot holds, dispatching an animal, or hiring an independent third-party trapper.
Who can be paid through a project? A producer who meets USDA payment eligibility rules, controls the land for the project period, and has an adjusted gross income of $900,000 or less.
And no double payment: a practice already funded through EQIP, CSP, CRP or AMA does not get paid twice.
What a landowner can do now
First, check whether your county is in one of the 32 project areas. The NRCS FSCP page lists them; the Texas four are above.
Second, call your local NRCS field office; the USDA Service Center Locator on farmers.gov finds it. Ask whether a project is expected in your area and who the partner would be.
Third, ask your landowner association or conservation district whether it applied, and what it has heard since.
Fourth, keep a dated record of what your cameras show: how many animals, how often, where. Projects collect damage data from participating landowners. In past years, that meant a damage questionnaire over the life of the project.
That record answers those questions and shows whether the hogs came back after trapping. It buys no priority and no money; it is the honest picture of your land.
For the counting method, see counting hogs in a sounder from trail camera photos.
Keep the programs straight
One caution, because acronyms blur together. The FSCP is this NRCS-led pilot with partner grants and project areas, not APHIS's broader feral swine damage management program.
It comes from the 2018 Farm Bill, with authority extended by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The wider funding picture is a separate story: where Farm Bill reauthorization stands.
Why this matters beyond the money
Federal cost-share turns a lone fight into an area-wide one, and hogs do not respect fence lines. Either way, your cameras before and after a removal tell you whether it worked.
That is what HogSight does: it reads your camera roll into a picture of the sounder, who is there, how many, and whether they came back. See how HogSight reads your camera roll →
Go further
This guide is informational. Program terms, areas and any future window are set by USDA: verify them on the NRCS FSCP page, grants.gov (notice USDA-NRCS-NHQ-FSCP-26) and your local NRCS office. Content drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by the publisher before publication.