Iowa farmers and landowners signed 315,000 acres into the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) conservation programs dur­­ing the first sign-up period of the 2018 farm bill, according to the state office of the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS).

During the sign-up period, which closed Sept. 30, NRCS sign­­ed 1,438 contracts worth $36.6 million to treat 197,000 acres through the Environmental...