Completing the Work We’ve Begun

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief
Natural Resources Conservation Service, at
National Association of Conservation Districts
2006 Legislative Conference
Washington, D.C.
March 27, 2006


Thank you, Billy (Wilson). Welcome to Washington. We hope you brought spring with you. Last week, we celebrated the beginning of spring on Monday, followed by some passing snow flurries on Tuesday!

At the Natural Resources Conservation Service, we’re always looking forward to spring—and working with our customers and partners on conservation projects.

Together, we’ve accomplished a great deal, helping people help the land. As I look back over the past four years under the 2002 farm bill, I’m amazed at the long list of what we’ve done. Just to mention a few things, we’ve:


FY 2002 to 2005 Accomplishments

• Applied conservation on 50 million+ acres of working farm and ranchland.

• Developed and applied nearly 10,500 comprehensive nutrient management plans.

• Conducted a comprehensive study of technical assistance, reaffirming the intrinsic value of scientifically-based tools and activities including developing conservation plans and encouraging a knowledge-based approach to conservation.

• Established, then expanded nationwide, the Conservation Security Program to recognize outstanding land stewards and enable them to do more.

• Launched the Web Soil Survey to make soils data available 24/7 over the Internet (78 million hits, averaging 660,000 per day since Aug. 16, 2005 with a total of 260,620 visits over the past 6 months).

• Worked with more than 2,500 Technical Service Providers, obligating $52.7 million in FY 2005, providing the equivalent of 520 staff years to attain additional conservation achievements, while districts and NRCS have grown and become more vital.

We’ve also made significant improvements in management at the agency. These changes help us be more efficient and effective. The ultimate goal, of course, is to better serve our customers. These improvements include:


FY 2002 to 2005 Management Improvements

• Streamlining the payment processes for EQIP.

• Reducing required paperwork for customers through common computer database in USDA Service Centers.

• Establishing a single centralized web authentication service.

• Implementing Geographic Information Systems and Global Positioning Systems.

• Developing software to provide natural resource information, make map development easier and track conservation contracts.

• Beginning work on an automated application ranking tool.

• Establishing a process for rapid watershed assessment to provide initial estimates of where conservation investments can best address resource concerns.

• Creating a transparent allocations process using resource base and resource concern factors to allocate funds to states.

• Instituting programmatic reforms such as a pilot sign-up process for technical assistance and common easement and cost-share provisions where possible.



Budget

When I spoke at your conference in January, I talked a bit about the NRCS budget. I want to touch on that topic again today.

We all know that we’re facing tight budgets ahead. As a nation, we need to fulfill our obligations and reduce our debts. Every agency and program will be affected.

That’s why the streamlining we’ve done is so important, and that’s why it’s so critical to make certain that every dollar we invest buys as much conservation as possible. We’re already doing what we can to tighten up in 2006.

That includes adjusting formulas to focus very specifically on resource priorities.
It means freezing vehicle purchases. It means holding the line on major asset purchases. It means proceeding very slowly on hiring. In short, it means being prudent and recognizing that our highest budgets for this farm bill are behind us rather than in front of us.

Future allocations will vary according to resource needs and priorities rather than a simple adjustment from whatever states and local offices got in prior years. That’s common sense and good business practice. We need to solve problems in one area and then move to the next to address resource issues there.

The 2007 budget proposal reflects that reality. The President has proposed

• a 28-percent increase in the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program,
• nearly a one-third increase in the Conservation Security Program
• and a whopping 60-percent increase in the Wetlands Reserve Program.

At the same time, there is sobering news for watersheds, RC&D, GLCI and the other earmarks. The key message is accountability—measuring the contribution each program makes to meeting conservation goals.

Still the overall NRCS budget reflects only a tiny 2-percent cut—clear demonstration of the value of environmental stewardship. It also reflects our priorities—addressing the most serious environmental concerns and recognizing those whose stewardship is exemplary and encouraging them to do more.

Over the past several years, investment in conservation has increased significantly.
That means every state is better off than it was a few years ago.
At the same time, this is a good opportunity to begin to look for additional sources of funding. I want to talk more about that in a few minutes.


Consolidating the Gains

Many of you have heard us say that 2006 is going to be a year of “consolidating the gains.” What does that mean?

Very simply, it means completing the work we’ve begun.

At a conference I attended recently, I heard a speaker put it this way: “You gotta land the plane.” It’s not enough to complete a flawless take-off and follow the flight plan to your destination. You gotta land the plane.

This year—2006—is a season of follow-up and follow-through. This is the year we’re gonna land the plane.

We’ve experienced a time of change. Now we need to consolidate the gains.

It’s not a rest period though. We’ll be busy wrapping up old business. We’re going to complete the contracts we’ve signed. We’re going to get conservation on the ground. We’re going to finish what we’ve started.

Consolidating the gains also means spending time fine-tuning our business tools so we can accurately and fully account for all the progress we’ve made. We want to make sure everything works smoothly—for our employees, our partners and, most importantly, our customers.

Enhancements we’re making in our business tools will also make our decisions and our processes more transparent. What we’re doing this year will pave the way for what lies ahead—the farm bill of 2007. We want to complete the work under the 2002 farm bill to get ready for even greater challenges to come.


2007 Farm Bill

Speaking of the next farm bill, we know from the 53 listening sessions that Secretary Johanns and other top USDA officials held last year that conservation is very important to farmers and ranchers.

Clearly, environmental stewardship will play an important role in whatever policies are ultimately incorporated in the 2007 farm bill. I think the next farm bill will also provide an opportunity to make improvements in conservation programs, such as

• Better integrating our programs
• Increasing transparency
• Ensuring that programs work for all producers, including limited resource and underserved farmers
• Emphasizing results by focusing on outcome-based measures


Strategic Plan

We’ve talked about consolidating the gains, and we’ve talked about the next farm bill. But we’ve also got our eye on the long-term—where conservation on working agricultural lands needs to go 5, 10, 15 and even 20 years from now. That’s the focus of our new strategic plan.

This is a bottom-up plan that’s been developed with the involvement of NRCS employees at all levels as well as customers and partners. As an agency, NRCS has a simple and clear mission: helping people help the land. And our ultimate objective is productive lands and a healthy environment.

To help us move from vision to reality, we have identified six goals—three foundation goals and three venture goals.

Our foundation goals cover traditional NRCS concerns:
• high quality, productive soils;
• clean and abundant water;
• and healthy plant and animal communities.

The venture goals focus on emerging resource concerns related to current economic and demographic trends. These include:
• air quality,
• an adequate energy supply and
• conserving working farms and ranch lands.

The plan also identifies three strategies we will use to address these concerns:
• cooperative conservation,
• a watershed approach and
• a market-based approach.

This plan is a solid blueprint that will drive us forward. But it also provides sufficient flexibility in the plan to enable us to adjust to the inevitable changes that will occur—including whatever the next farm bill brings—and to recognize local priorities.


Technology Advances

Another top priority for NRCS is developing and sharing new technology to better inform the decisions our customers make. Some of you joined us for our tech showcase in Houston.

If you missed that, I’d encourage you to stop by USDA tomorrow if you can. We’ll be demonstrating our tech tools in Room 5108 in the South Building from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. If you’d like a guided tour of the Web Soil Survey, the NRCS Plants Database, NRCS ranking tools or program performance data, we’d love to have you join us.

You can also check out our Energy Estimator designed to help farmers determine how much money they can save 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. Or the nitrogen estimator, which calculates how much farmers could save by switching from fossil fuel fertilizer to manure or by using different fertilizer management strategies. And right now, the programmers are working on a component to quantify savings gained from moving to more efficient irrigation systems.


Market-Based Incentives

A few minutes ago, in the context of the budget, I mentioned that we are actively considering other funding sources to get more conservation on the land. We all know there will never be enough federal dollars to accomplish all the conservation that we would like to see established on the land.

We need to find other sources, other strategies. We’re looking more and more at market-based approaches to help pay for environmental services, such as improved air and water quality.

Historically, these services have been largely taken for granted and not considered public goods. But the truth is, these services are important public goods that come at a cost to private landowners and should be valued. When the public or corporations or nonprofit groups benefit from conservation on private lands, it makes sense for them to contribute to the cost of maintaining or enhancing these environmental benefits.

At the White House Conference on Cooperative Conservation last summer, Agriculture Secretary Johanns announced a new U.S. Department of Agriculture Policy on Market-Based Environmental Stewardship. As we move forward, our goal is to

• encourage broader participation in market-based efforts,
• build the infrastructure to support expansion of this approach, and
• develop measurement tools that demonstrate the effectiveness of various conservation practices.

We want to facilitate and increase the flow of information as well as make our own programs and approaches as transparent as possible. Transparency is the key to enabling willing buyers and sellers to find each other and make win/win deals that also are a win for the environment.

Even after the record funding provided by the 2002 farm bill, there is still so much more to be done. Increasingly, we’re going to be looking at some of these innovative approaches to getting conservation on the ground.


Conclusion

NRCS’ vision is productive lands and a healthy environment. We’re committed to achieving this vision by working with partners who understand the link between preserving productivity and safeguarding and promoting environmental benefits.
I know you share this vision.

Now it’s time to complete the work we’ve begun. Chinese American women’s business advisor Chin Ning Chu puts it this way, “To succeed in life in today’s world, you must have the will and tenacity to finish the job.”

In the end, that’s what really counts: landing the plane, finishing the job, completing the work. I’m glad we have partners like you to help us get it done.