Bridging the Gap—the View from Washington

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service, at South Carolina Conservation Partnership Conference Kingston Plantation

Myrtle Beach, SC
January 4, 2006

Thank you, Walter (Douglas). I’m glad I could join you again this year for the South Carolina Conservation Partnership Conference.

You’ve chosen an intriguing theme this year—bridging the gap between conservation in rural areas and the urban landscape. Both are critical to the overall health of the environment we all share.

For 70 years NRCS has been a partner in cooperative conservation—locally-led efforts to help people help the land. Local conservation districts have been valued partners since the Dust Bowl days when our agency was created. We share a common history, a common mission and a joint commitment to conserving the land. We must never forget, it is the combined effort of everyone—NRCS and all our partners—that has made a difference over the past seven decades.

One of our most immediate concerns, shared with our city cousins, is the high cost of fuel. While gasoline prices have come down somewhat, diesel and fertilizer prices are still much higher than in the past—and home heating costs have risen significantly for city dwellers as well.

Energy Estimator
USDA is committed to doing everything we can to help producers conserve fuel and fertilizer as part of our conservation mission. Saving energy reduces costs for producers and thus boosts their bottom lines. It’s part of an integrated effort to conserve natural resources, including soil and water.
But there’s also a payoff for our nation—improving the U.S. import/export balance and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil. In short, saving energy is a sound business strategy that also benefits our country.
To help producers, in early December, Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns announced the USDA Energy Strategy. The Energy Estimator, an NRCS tool available on our website, is a key feature of this effort.
Farmers can log into this tool and in just three “clicks” determine how much they could save in fuel costs by switching from conventional tillage to no-till. They just need to plug in their zip code, their crops and acreage and the price they expect to pay for fuel.
For example, on a 1,000-acre corn farm, at November diesel prices, a farmer who switched to no-till could expect to save $7.70 per acre, or $7,700. The website includes other energy-saving strategies as well.
Over the next several weeks, we’ll be posting additional energy-saving information, as well as some success stories. We’re also developing additional components for the Energy Estimator that will focus on saving money through improved irrigation and through better fertilizer management. All of this information will be available at www.nrcs.usda.gov.
Please encourage farmers that you work with to try it out. We need your help!
Implementing the 2002 Farm Bill

The primary focus for NRCS this year, and next, is implementing the 2002 farm bill. That’s job one for us. Everything we do individually and collectively needs to contribute to that effort.

Motivational speaker Brian Tracy puts it this way, “If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it’s moving you away from your goals.”

We want to move forward together to help farmers and ranchers meet their conservation goals. We want to be sure everyone is aware of our programs and has the opportunity to participate. We need to make sure our outreach is broad and effective. We also need to finish what we’ve begun—wrapping up uncompleted contracts from previous years as well as signing new contracts.

Getting conservation on the ground is what we’re all about.

In mid-October, we authorized our state offices to spend $1.7 billion on our voluntary conservation programs so that work could begin right away. Now that appropriations are final, Secretary Johanns released an additional $1 billion in early December for a total of $2.7 billion to be invested in voluntary conservation on working agricultural lands.

For South Carolina, initial allocations of conservation funds total more than $29.2 million. Most of your program offerings should be fully operational at this time. Our goal is to make conservation decisions before spring.

Cooperative Conservation

One of the keys to the 2002 farm bill, and I believe, the next farm bill, is cooperative conservation. This past August, President Bush sponsored a cooperative conservation conference that featured many success stories of locally-led, collaborative efforts to benefit the environment. It was an opportunity for everyone to see how well incentives and partnerships can work in accomplishing environmental goals. The conference emphasized voluntary approaches that recognize that economic opportunity and environmental stewardship go hand-in-hand.

One of the examples included in the book given to everyone who participated was the successful effort by South Carolina’s Partners for Trout to ensure protection and restoration of your state’s rare trout waters. This partnership involves a lot of groups:

• Eastatoee [east uh TOH ee] Valley landowners,
• the Foothills RC&D Council,
• the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources,
• Trout Unlimited,
• the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
• the Forest Service,
• Oconee, Pickens and Greenville Soil and Water Conservation Districts,
• and NRCS.

Together these groups worked to restore two sites in Pickens County along the Eastatoee River. Landowners in the area agreed to return streambank areas from pasture to a natural wood state—installing riparian buffers alongside the stream, which shades and cools water temperatures to make them suitable for trout.

This partnership, like many others here in South Carolina and across the country, demonstrates how we can make a difference by combining ideas, experience, resources and energy. The beneficiaries are the trout and other wildlife—and all those who appreciate them—in Upstate South Carolina’s streams.
This success proves an important principal. We can be successful with agricultural conservation only when we are able to demonstrate that the practices we recommend bring benefits to those who live on and work the land as well as others in the community.

FY 2005 Achievements

I want to turn now specifically to our accomplishments nationally in the past year. In FY 2005, NRCS, with its partners

• Served nearly 100,000 farmers and ranchers
• Invested $3.3 billion in voluntary, incentive-based conservation
• Established a comprehensive policy and transparent allocation formula for the CTA program
• Expanded the new Conservation Security Program nationwide
• Launched the Web Soil Survey to make soils data available 24/7 over the Internet
• Supported the President’s Wetlands Initiative to restore, create or enhance 3 million acres of wetlands by 2009

Limited Resource Farmers Initiative

I also want to mention another special effort that South Carolina participated in last year—our Limited Resource Farmers Initiative—an initiative that we couldn’t have done without Walt Douglas’ leadership and creativity.

In 11 southern states, we set aside up to $6 million in 2005 Environmental Quality Incentives Program funds to help limited resource and beginning farmers implement good conservation practices on their lands.

It was a rousing success.

Having these farmers compete only against other limited resource farmers makes a lot of sense. South Carolina devoted $1.1 million to this effort, serving 118 farmers. Most of the farmers who participated had small acreages and received up to 90 percent cost-shares to apply technically sound conservation practices modified to suit smaller operations.

I believe more beginning and limited resource farmers could benefit from this program. So last month, we announced a nationwide expansion of the program for 2006. We expect to devote well over $10 million in EQIP funds across the country. In fact, I view that target as a goal that our state conservationists will blow right past.

Priorities for 06

I want to talk for a few minutes about NRCS priorities for 2006. I see this year as a time of consolidating our gains. We’ll be fine-tuning our programs, making sure we achieve excellence in every area, that everything is working well and humming along.

As I mentioned earlier, we’ll be focused on completing our work under the 2002 farm bill—getting conservation on the ground. In addition, there are three other areas of emphasis for this fiscal year—

1. Cooperative Conservation
2. Watershed Approach, and
3. Market-based Incentives

We’ve talked about cooperative conservation and the value of a voluntary, partnership approach. This is nothing new for NRCS or our conservation district partners.

Taking a watershed approach does represent a change—but a logical one. We all know that watersheds represent nature’s boundaries and those within watersheds share similar resource concerns. It’s a way to ensure that we manage resources accountably.

A relatively new area for NRCS is market-based incentives. I want us to take a very broad view—including cap and trade programs but also moving beyond that.
Our goal here is four-fold. We want to

• Create infrastructure to support market-based approaches to conservation;
• Encourage additional private revenue streams;
• Foster creative, innovative partnerships; and
• Promote conservation based on market forces (such as no-till as fuel/fertilizer prices rise)

2007 Farm Bill

Before I close, I want to talk for a few minutes about the next farm bill. This summer and fall, Secretary Johanns and other top USDA staff have been reaching out to our customers across the country to learn what they want to see in the 2007 farm bill.

USDA has completed 53 listening sessions in 48 states, including the one in South Carolina in November attended by Eric Bost, Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services. As Secretary Johanns put it, we’ve heard “very strong opinions expressed by some very passionate people.”

Across the country we’ve learned there are widely varied views on some farm programs. However, there is consensus on the value and importance of conservation programs.

In sharing his impressions of the forums, Secretary Johanns said, “We have also heard tremendous support for another of the President’s priorities—conservation. Our cooperative conservation programs provide farmers and ranchers with financial support, while benefiting the whole of society by protecting our natural resources today and for future generations.”

We don’t know exactly what lies ahead for farm programs. We do know that many current programs date back 75 years or more, when the face of agriculture was very different from what it is today. So it’s hard to predict exactly what the next farm bill will look like. But I think that we can expect conservation to play an important role in whatever policies are ultimately incorporated in the 2007 farm bill.

Returning to our Roots

However, we are likely to see some changes. Historically, the core business for NRCS has been knowledge-based conservation. I believe we’ll see a trendline back to that. I think the future will be more about technical assistance than dollars shared.

Looking ahead, I see us focusing more and more on providing landowners a partnership of support and the information they need to make the best management decisions. That’s where the greatest potential for growth exists.

The next generation of conservation will—and must—be management-driven.
In the future, I believe NRCS will function as a conservation catalyst—an agent that facilitates change. The agency will coordinate conservation projects with landowners and partner groups, like conservation districts.

Farm bill dollars have helped make things happen. But it’s partnerships that get the work done. And I know we can count on those partnerships as we move forward.

Conclusion

We—and you—are doing conservation work that will have lasting value—in our lifetimes and in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. Our legacy will live on in productive land, clear waters and abundant wildlife. That’s something we can all take pride in.

Working in partnership with those in urban areas and rural areas, with groups like the South Carolina Association of Conservation Districts, and with many conservation-minded landowners, together, we can make a difference in the environment that will benefit everyone.