Being Conservation Merchants

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service,
at the NACD Spring Legislative Conference,
Washington, DC,
March 18, 2003

Thank you, Billy (Wilson). Good morning. It is good to be with you today.

I enjoyed attending the NACD Annual Meeting in Orlando. It truly is the largest gathering of private lands conservationists in America. And I’m sure there isn’t a larger meeting in any other country!

I’m glad to see so many of you have come to Washington this week to talk with members of Congress and Congressional staffs about private lands conservation. Last week, Under Secretary Mark Rey and I testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the resources NRCS needs to implement the President’s vision for private lands conservation.

Under Secretary Rey stressed the progress we have made in making our services more accessible and in improving our accountability systems. He emphasized the implementation of a dedicated Technical Assistance account, using Technical Service Providers to complement our existing delivery systems, and ensuring adequate support of Conservation Operations.

We both stressed the importance of meeting the President’s budget request. I talked about local decision making, electronic services, the need to fund conservation technical assistance, and funding for such needs as improving the health of grazing lands, undertaking watershed projects, and reducing the risks of drought and flooding.

I stressed in my testimony that the future of conservation on private lands requires not only a continued commitment of resources, but new approaches to getting the job done. If Congress approves the conservation spending proposed by the President, we will have the resources needed to take private land conservation to a new level.

I imagine many – if not most – of you were at the Orlando meeting and had a chance to hear Read Smith’s speech, Ernie Shea’s speech, and my speech. If not, all three speeches are on your web site, and you can look them over to get a good idea about where private lands conservation is headed.

Today, I want to draw on the Orlando experience to re-visit a couple of aspects of the future of conservation. And share with you an insight I got from your own Marc Curtis just recently.

But, there are a couple of subjects I want to touch on because various NACD leaders asked me to.

First, 2003 apportionment and 2003 program implementation. We are in the process of securing that apportionment. When we have whose dollars, we will begin program sign-up.

Second, were are headed with the Conservation Security program in 2003? We are now seeking comments on the Advance Notice of Proposed Rule Making and need your input.

Those of you who were in Orlando heard me talk at some length about NRCS’s and USDA’s commitment to locally led conservation. I said we were writing the rules for farm bill conservation programs to keep decision making at the local level.

I know there are people in the districts who are questioning that commitment, particularly with regard to some of the provisions of the proposed EQIP rule: The requirement that cost-shares greater than 50 per cent be approved by the State Conservationist, the requirement that contracts over $100,000 be approved by the Regional Conservationist, and even the four national priorities for EQIP.

It is certainly the right of everyone to disagree with any law, policy, or rule, but I think these disagreements focus on relatively small exceptions, rather on the overall picture, regarding local decision making. The EQIP rule contains the first ever formal recognition of local decision making in a farm bill program. That is a major step forward. Mark Berkland, the NRCS director for Conservation Operations, told me just before he retired, that having local decision making in this rule was one of his proudest achievements.

Even with a commitment to local decision making, we still have to recognize that EQIP is not a local program. It spans each and every State and the whole nation. It is appropriate to retain a few safeguards to be sure the program is applied with some consistency across States and regions and to protect the designated conservationists at the local level from accusations of making arbitrary and unfair decisions.

The national priorities are very broad and leave a lot of room for local decision making. The 50 per cent rule and the $100,000 rule also leave a lot of room for local decision making. They don’t take away the ability for local leaders to meet local needs for higher cost shares or larger contracts. What they do is add a safeguard for these exceptional cases that will help local leaders withstand any inquires as to the appropriateness of these decisions. Essentially, they are a part of the increased accountability we can all expect as a result of the increased investment in conservation.

I hope we can focus on the broad local flexibility provided in the rule and not on the few exceptions. Accountability was one thing both Read Smith and Ernie Shea talked about in Orlando. Ernie talked about how the public is looking to us to produce quantifiable environmental improvements and decision makers are demanding greater accountability for the increase investments they are making. Read talked about accountability as the price we pay for opportunity. He stressed the need to carefully and correctly manage the public trust. And he pointed out that we cannot assume that the processes and procedures of the past are the proper and most efficient way to do business today.

I agree with both Ernie and Read, both with regard to accountability and with regard to finding new ways of doing business.

This past weekend, the Wildlife Management Institute sponsored a workshop where a variety of interest groups talked about the challenges of getting conservation done. Both NRCS and NACD were well represented at the workshop.

I took the opportunity of the workshop to talk about the challenge of looking at new ways of doing business, and I’d like to share some of those new ways with you now.

First -- an increased emphasis on conservation on working lands. This is a challenge. There is a lot more involved in doing conservation on working lands than there is in retiring lands from production.

Second -- the increased emphasis on decision making at the local level. Local leadership is a tradition for us, but the increased investment in conservation presents new challenges for – and scrutiny of – local decision making.

Third – the need to become more efficient and to streamline the delivery of conservation technology and programs. This includes both administrative changes, such as those involving EQIP and CRP, and new technologies, such as E-FOTG, the Customer Service Toolkit, and others.

Fourth – the need to make conservation programs and conservation decision making more accessible. Having our standards and our ranking criteria available on-line are a big part of this.

And finally – learning to work together in more diverse groups to be more effective. I talked a bit about this in Orlando, as did Read and others. This really is going to be the key to getting more conservation done. Fortunately, there are hundreds of new partners out there, most of them eager to get going on the challenges of the next golden age of conservation.

Working with others is so important that I have made two new appointments on my staff to help out. First, Diane Hawks is already on board, working with Agricultural Groups. And next month, Dave Gagner will join us to work with wildlife groups. You all remember Dave as a veteran of NACD.

As long as I am talking about new approaches to doing business, I want to tell you about something Marc Curtis said this weekend at the Wildlife Management Institute Workshop. He appeared with me on a panel, speaking as a farmer, not as an NACD officer.

What he said is that NRCS used to be a service provider. Farmers and ranchers came to us when they wanted information, advice, and even financial assistance.

He said that we are now merchants. Our job today is to sell conservation to farmers and ranchers. By this he meant that the public wants farmers and ranchers to undertake the expense and effort of producing conservation. Our job is to convince those farmers and ranchers that this is worth their while – to sell them on conservation.

Being good merchants, Marc says, requires several things:

• We have to make sure we have a good product. This translates into simple rules. We can’t make it too difficult to participate.

• We also have to make sure our product is available. We can’t advertise assistance and then have no money or no technical assistance, or any other excuse for not delivering.

• We have to have good delivery. That means rapid approval, timely completion.

• We have to have good service. That means treating farmers and ranchers with the respect a good customer deserves.

• We have to have a good price. Which translates not only into attractive cost-share rates, and good leveraging packages, but also ease of participation. Time is money.

• Finally, he said we need an entrepreneurial spirit that causes us to find a way to make “it” happen, rather than letting bureaucratic barriers keep “it” from happening.

This concept of being a merchant rather than a service provider is an interesting one, and I think it applies to districts as well as to NRCS. To achieve success, we must become better merchants and do a better job of selling conservation – not just to farmers and ranchers, but also to decision makers and the public.

Selling conservation is part of what you are doing here this week. Good luck.

Now, I would be happy to take any questions.