Year-end Message to NRCS Employees and Partners

Bruce I. Knight, Chief, NRCS
October 3, 2003


As we begin the new Federal fiscal year, I want to thank NRCS employees and partners for all you did to make the past 12 months a record year for conservation on America’s private lands.

Fully implementing a new farm bill is a multi-year task, so it is no surprise that we devoted much of our effort to getting farm bill programs up and running.

For fiscal year 2003, we allocated $2.4 billion to the States. NRCS offices did a tremendous job of putting that investment to work on the land. Time was tight, because we did not receive most of the money until April, but everyone worked together and put the money to work. Beyond that, you also did an extraordinary job in the last month of the fiscal year, awarding contracts to cover $155 million in year-end reallocations. Your hard work will enable more farmers and ranchers meet their conservation goals.

One of our goals for FY 2003 was to make sure every producer knew about farm bill programs and had an opportunity to participate. NRCS employees and partners in every State worked to get the word out. The Department of Agriculture held outreach events in many States, and NRCS employees helped out. We received many thousands of applications for farm bill funds because of these outreach efforts – and underserved segments of the producer population were well represented.

I am proud of all the work our employees did to get the national and local priorities for conservation programs onto the Internet. Having access to these priorities helps producers focus their time and effort on submitting applications that have the best chance of being approved – one more way in which our e-government efforts produce better service for our customers.

We continued to write program rules that were lean and local, producing the proposed and final rules for the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program, the final rule for Conservation of Private Grazing Land, the interim final rule Technical Service Provider Assistance, and the final rule for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. All of these rules were made better by the thousands of comments we received from our conservation partners and customers.

Getting the Technical Service Provider process up and running was another major challenge last year. Your outreach efforts resulted in more than 1,200 certified providers by the end of the fiscal year, with more than 1,000 additional providers in the certification process. By certifying a large number of providers, we have arrived at a point where farmers and ranchers can put Technical Service Providers to work.

Conservation happens because of one-on-one relationships. Your success in this area is reflected in our serving 3.6 million customers around the country last year..

Even with all this farm bill activity, we were able to help large numbers of farmers and ranchers through our primary product – conservation technical assistance. Final figures are pending, but it looks like we helped producers complete plans for resource management systems on nearly 19 million acres of cropland and grazing land. We reduced risk of drought and flooding on 13½ million acres, and we developed or applied nearly 8,000 comprehensive nutrient management plans.

In FY 2003, we completed our updated soil survey mapping on 22 million acres. We started our effort to streamline program delivery and made good progress on the President’s Management Initiatives.

I know last year was a year of challenge and change for NRCS employees and partners alike. But we all know it was also a year filled with accomplishment. Credit for these accomplishments goes to all NRCS employees and partners.

The new fiscal year promises to be equally challenging and exciting. We will be issuing the rule for the Conservation Security Program and putting this exciting new conservation idea into action. We are headed toward having an even bigger farm bill investment this year, which will allow us to help more farmers and ranchers than ever. We will be issuing the final rule for Technical Service Provider Assistance and making adjustments to the not-to-exceed rates. We will continue to streamline our program implementation, and to implement the President’s management initiatives. And we will implement our proposed reorganization of regional offices, institutes, cooperating scientists, and headquarters divisions to strengthen our ability to help producers and offer them the latest science-based technologies.

Thanks again for all your hard work and dedication. I am proud of your accomplishments and will be conveying that good news to Secretary Veneman. I look forward to working with you all during the coming year as we continue to make the next golden age of conservation a reality.