Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service,
at the National Organization of Professional Hispanic NRCS Employees Annual Training Conference
Des Moines, IA
June 17, 2003

Thank you, Humberto (Hernandez) and Pedro (Ramos) for your kind words.

Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here for the Annual NOPHNRCSE Training Conference. I enjoyed attending your meeting last year in Fort Worth, and am glad to have this opportunity to meet with you again.

You have a good mix of topics on your agenda, dealing with technical topics, farm bill programs, professional issues, such as ethics and accountability, and personal development. You have a busy week ahead of you.

Three weeks ago, Pedro and I were at the NRCS Partnership Diversity Summit in, Washington DC. Joe Cantu´, who had planned to be here today, represented NARC&DC at that summit, and
Bill Hunt represented the National Organization of Professional Black NRCS Employees.

The session brought together the leaders of several major partner organizations: NACD, NARC&DC, NASCA, and NCDEA, along with the presidents of most of the NRCS employee organizations. We had a productive session discussing what we all need to do to increase the diversity of our leadership structures and improve our service to traditionally underserved populations. We will meet again next month to review an action plan for reaching these goals.

Your theme for this week’s conference is particularly appropriate as we begin the second year of farm bill implementation. The 2002 farm bill has already made a record investment in conservation on non-federal agricultural lands. And that investment just gets bigger each year. Making that investment wisely is truly a challenge and an opportunity worth welcoming.

Your agenda seems well suited to addressing the challenges all of us will be facing personally and professionally over the next few years.


Civil Rights Policy Statement

I would like to begin today by talking a bit about the NRCS Civil Rights Policy Statement.
Every employee should have received a copy of this policy last year. In working with Andrew Johnson to formulate that statement – and in signing it – I came to a whole new appreciation of my role in the civil rights and equal employment opportunity programs here at NRCS.

I want you to know that I stand behind every word in this statement – not because they are laws and policies, but because they are the right thing to do. I will work hard to make sure NRCS lives up to the commitment represented by this policy.

As an agency, we need to live up to this policy with regard to our workforce. We need to match the diversity of our recruiting to the diversity of our nation. This is particularly true for recruiting Hispanic employees. The under-representation of Hispanics within USDA is dramatic.

Addressing this situation will take hard work all across the nation, and it will take time. Not only do we need strong recruiting today, we need to work in the colleges, universities, and communities to build a stronger recruiting base in the future. The work you have been doing with the Hispanic Serving Institutions is a great start.

We also need to work hard with younger Hispanic children to stimulate their interest in conservation. The Earth Team can be a great help in this effort.

Beyond recruiting, we also need to make sure that all of our employees have an equal opportunity to move up in the organization. Recruitment provides diversity at the bottom, but retention and promotion provide diversity at the top.

We have some great progress to report this year, including selection of José Acevedo as Deputy Chief for Programs. I have come to rely heavily on José’s integrity, expertise, and experience. Mike Gonzales was recently selected by Secretary Veneman for the Senior Executive Service Career Development Program. And I recently selected Livia Marqués to be State Conservationist in Nevada.

José is the first Hispanic Deputy Chief in NRCS history. Livia is the first female Hispanic State Conservationist. For Nevada, she is both the first female State Conservationist and the first Hispanic State Conservationist. In the year 2003, we should be well beyond firsts, but it is still good to celebrate them when they do happen.

José, Mike, and Livia are the kind of talented people we need in the top positions in our agency. We also need to retain the diversity we already have, even as we face the challenges of competitive sourcing and the upcoming loss of many of our older employees through retirement.


Competitive Sourcing

I know the concept of Competitive Sourcing has been very unsettling to many NRCS employees, particularly for employees whose jobs are being studied. But I want you to know that I value your contributions to this great agency, that we will make this effort fair and equitable, and that we will use all the tools at our disposal to ease the transition of any employees who wind up being affected by competitive sourcing.

There are a few things I would like you to keep in mind when you are thinking about Competitive Sourcing. First, Competitive Sourcing is not a reflection on the quantity or quality of your service or your dedication to conservation. Second, it is not directed at NRCS. It is a government-wide effort, to bring down the costs of government services – to provide value to the taxpayer. Third, Competitive Sourcing is not an effort to get rid of government employees. There are no workforce reduction targets. If the government can do the work more efficiently, the work will stay in government.

We think cost comparisons will be favorable in many cases. I am confident that much of this work will stay inside NRCS -- we do many things very well and very efficiently.

One possible bit of good news for Hispanic NRCS employees, most of whom work in technical jobs, is that the government tends to be able to provide technical services more economically than the private sector. That means a good, solid comparison has a better chance of coming out in favor of the government retaining the function. We will need your help in making these comparisons.

I am committed to helping affected employees in every way possible. If any of our studies result in work moving out of the Federal government, we will do everything we can to retain affected employees within NRCS and to assist those people into the career options of their choice.


The Retirement Bulge

You have all heard about the so-called retirement bulge, when thousands of our employees become eligible to retire. Retirement is a natural phenomenon. All of us will eventually retire, the good Lord willing. But, as long as we enjoy our work and feel valued, we won’t rush into retirement.

The retirement bulge presents the challenge of retaining our colleagues who want to continue working, while opening the doors for the next generation of conservationists.

In plain English, we need to have good opportunities for advancement, good training, and a good work environment if we are to keep our younger employees from moving on. This good working environment and these opportunities for training and advancement must exist for all employees, if we are to retain talented young employees from all backgrounds.

In short, we must continually strive to do more to make NRCS a good place to work, so we retain and reward the employees we have.

The retirement bulge will take away some of our hard-earned diversity, but also offer opportunities to make our workforce more diverse. In terms of Hispanic representation, the male Hispanics now working in NRCS are slightly younger than our average employee, and female Hispanic employees are quite a bit younger. With good retention and good recruiting, the retirement bulge should help us address the under-representation of Hispanics in our workforce.

Diversity in Customer Service

As you all know, our Civil Rights agenda does not stop with recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce. It must be embodied in how we serve our customers. We have been doing a pretty good job of serving Hispanic farmers and ranchers, thanks in great part to your efforts in offices around the country.

Hispanic farmers and ranchers have been coming into NRCS offices in greater numbers than their population would indicate. I think this is partially due to the increasing numbers of Hispanic farmers and ranchers nationwide, but we need to do more in terms of promoting program delivery among traditionally underserved populations, including Hispanic farmers and ranchers. These challenges will be different because of the growing number of Hispanic farmers.

Your mission and your goals place you at the center of our effort to reach out to the Hispanic community. You all know that the Department of Agriculture has historically had problems with delivering programs equally to all farmers and ranchers. Our job, yours and mine, is to change that!

I want to thank the members of NOPHNRCSE for all you have done to help improve customer service for Hispanic farmers and ranchers:

• Your assistance with establishing an agreement between USDA and the Hispanic Radio Network for radio programs and newspaper articles that will help keep the Hispanic community informed, as well as your help in translating many NRCS publications into Spanish.

• Your work with the Good Neighbor Environmental Board to help the President and Congress work more effectively with border communities on environmental concerns.

• All of your many outreach activities, including farm bill sessions around the country.

And that doesn’t count the valuable assistance you give every day in meeting with Spanish speaking customers throughout the United States.

Just as our conservation practices change the physical environment on a daily basis, we can change the service environment for our customers and improve the reputation of USDA. All of the agencies within the Department have been working hard to correct this situation, and NRCS is no exception. But there is much that needs to be done.


Farm Bill Opportunities

As I said at the beginning, the new farm bill makes more resources available to more farmers than ever before. It is important that we all work hard to extend the benefits of the new farm bill to everyone who is eligible.

That means doubling our efforts to serve all kinds of farmers. It means reaching out to all communities, including Hispanic farmers and ranchers. It means being open, fair, courteous, and responsive to all farmers and ranchers.

USDA is being held increasingly responsible for delivering Agriculture programs to all citizens in this country, and that responsibility flows through agreements and contracts to everywhere Federal dollars are involved. NRCS and all of its partners must live up to this responsibility in everything we do, from meetings with landowners to delivery of services. That is what we talked about with our partner organizations last month.

Many of you are well positioned in your local communities to get our messages out to those who could benefit from our programs and services.


Technical Service Providers

The farm bill also provides for Technical Service Providers to assist landowners on a voluntary basis. Our goal is to make the program attractive enough that Technical Service Providers are in demand and we NRCS employees won’t have to work nights and weekends to keep up.

One of the things you can do to help in the Technical Service Provider process is to talk up the program in the community, so that a wide diversity of third party vendors come forward to do the work. We must ensure that these are people farmers and ranchers will trust to give them quality service.


Technical Delivery System

Another key to success is for us to maintain the strength of our technical delivery system for farmers and ranches, in every community. One aspect of strengthening our technical delivery system is to be sure we focus on conservation and not on programs.

Our goal is to help producers reach their conservation goals. Frequently we are involved in helping producers set goals, or translate existing goals into plans. We help producers do good things for the land within the context of maintaining a strong economic operation.

With all the new farm bill money, there will be a temptation to focus on programs – numbers of applications received, numbers of contracts approved, numbers of acres treated. But this approach drifts away from our 70-year history of providing conservation assistance.

So, focusing on conservation goals, rather than programs, is one important aspect of improving our technical delivery system.


Conclusion

So, there are challenging times ahead for all of us. I know, because you are attending this week’s conference, that you have the dedication and the energy to help NRCS meet these challenges.
I wish you good luck and continued success.