Bakst couches the program as “paying farmers NOT to farm their land.” The reality is obviously more complex. The primary purpose of the Conservation Reserve Program is to improve environmental health and sustainability by incentivizing farmers and landowners to remove environmentally sensitive land from agricultural production and implement conservation practices. This provides benefits such as preventing soil erosion, improving water quality, enhancing wildlife habitats, promoting carbon sequestration, and improving air quality. The program was introduced in 1985 under Reagan following concerns over unacceptably high levels of soil erosion. It authorized the USDA to enroll up to 45 million acres in the program. So yes, it “pays farmers not to farm their land”, but for environmental reasons. [Source]

More potential outcomes of this in the full contextual analysis of Section 3.1: Department of Agriculture here.