NRCS and FSA: Working Together on Farm Bill Implementation

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service,
at the Joint Executive Session of FSA State Executive Directors and NRCS State Conservationists, Reno, NV
June 24, 2003


Good afternoon. Thank you, José (Acevedo) and Paul (Gutierrez), for opening this meeting. And thank you, Livia (Marques) and Roger (Van Valkenburg), for moderating today’s session.

I’m glad all of you could be here today as we start our three-phase meeting on farm bill implementation and other important issues appropriate for State leadership coordination. This meeting is another clear indication of the growing spirit of cooperation between the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Farm Service Agency (FSA), starting with passage of the 2002 Farm Bill.

My tenure as Chief of NRCS began almost exactly with passage of the farm bill, so cooperation between FSA and NRCS is all I have ever known. Secretary Veneman has emphasized greater cooperation among mission areas and agencies throughout her time as Secretary. One of the first things she told me when I was selected to be chief, was that she expected me to work closely with (FSA Administrator) Jim Little. So Jim and I started in right away meeting regularly to discuss how NRCS and FSA can better work together to implement the various farm bill programs and perform our other operations.

As Secretary Veneman told all FSA and NRCS employees via satellite broadcast in May of last year, “. . . this is the kind of teamwork we need to foster in this Department, and it's going to be particularly critical as we implement this new farm bill.” She said then that “Much of the implementation burden now falls to FSA and NRCS, who have the lion’s share of the bill’s provisions.” She announced the formation of the USDA Farm Bill Working Group to coordinate implementation of the farm bill. She charged all of us to streamline our programs and reduce the red tape.

In July, FSA and NRCS had our first-ever, national all-employee meeting of our two agencies via satellite. That meeting, like this one, was an important step in building a stronger spirit of cooperation between our Agencies, and a step toward providing even better service to our customers and the taxpayers.

Since last year, our agencies have made great progress in working together:

• We streamlined the approval processes for CRP and EQIP

• We worked together in developing the Technical Service Provider Process.

• We continue our joint work to make e-government a central feature of our customer service.

• We continue to work toward implementing the Common Computing Environment.

• We are working closely together to make sure that the office co-location process accomplishes the goals set out by the Secretary and is done right.

• And, as we can see this week, we are working together in the most collaborative fashion to implement the Grassland Reserve Program (GRP). The dual-agency GRP training here in Reno on Thursday is a prime example.

As you can see from this afternoon’s agenda, José and Paul will be leading a discussion on the Grassland Reserve Program, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), and the Conservation Reserve Program.

Tomorrow, we will add in the Regional Foresters from the Forest Service, the Regional and State Administrative Officers, State Program Managers, and others. We will discuss farm bill allocations and donor programs; farm bill contract scenarios regarding legal, contracting, and financial management issues for the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program and EQIP; accountability; ethics and confidentiality; and how our streamlining activities helped support our efforts to get the full cost technical assistance in this year’s NRCS apportionment

Thursday, the State Program Coordinators for GRP will also be meeting.

I am confident that after this meeting we will all know a lot more about how we will work together on farm bill implementation.

Let me note that “Working Together” is the important part of what we are doing today. NRCS and FSA have not always been this dedicated to working together. But, we have been emphasizing a new spirit of cooperation for more than a year now, and we are seeing results.

I have received much positive feedback about a renewed spirit of cooperation in many of our field offices, but there is still much work to do. Some aspects of the cooperation between our agencies still seem foreign to some of our employees some of the time and in some places. We need to double our efforts in the coming year to make cooperation the norm for every employee in every office all the time.

Given human nature, we know we can expect a range of responses from enthusiastic support to active resistance. It is our role as managers at the State and national level to do all we can to create an environment where cooperation is the accepted way of doing business.

We can create this environment in several ways:

• By communicating fully -- getting the facts out ahead of the gossip that fuels the rumor mill.

• By taking the initiative and building the bridges needed between our agencies.

• By being visible examples of cooperation for all our employees and for our customers.

We hold the key to success for maintaining a strong NRCS and a strong FSA, working side-by-side, getting the Nation’s conservation business done.

I recently attended a meeting where the speaker told us the most important part of public service is to retain a spirit of “unwarranted optimism.” We must capture that feeling of “unwarranted optimism” as we build our relationship. I personally retain my unwarranted optimism that we will succeed.

Thank you.