Farmers have another incentive to join a program intended to increase alternative energy production as well as having a few more days to apply for the program.

Hill County Farm Service Executive Director Mike Zook said Monday that, in addition to extending the deadline to apply to the Biomass Crop Assistance Program to this coming Friday, the contractual requirements have been adjusted as well.

Under the program, agricultural producers are paid to produce crops to be used in making fuel. Montana, California and Washington were added in July as the eighth region in BCAP, in which camelina will be raised to produce biofuels such as jet fuel and biodiesel. The original deadline to apply for the program was Sept. 16, but that was extended last week to this coming Friday.

Zook said another change is in the language of the contract.

Originally, in a program similar to the Conservation Reserve Program, farmers would have been paid rental fees for raising camelina if they entered a five-year contract to produce it for use in fuel.

Zook said the language has been changed to allow producers to get out of the contract without penalty after raising camelina for the first two years.

He said FSA is trying to give some extra incentives and time for people to try entering the BCAP program, especially in this year of late planting and harvests.

“We think that everybody’s had their mind on getting harvesting done and finishing seeding, but we want to give every opportunity to people who would like to try it, ” he said.