2002 Farm Bill Update

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief
Natural Resources Conservation Service
at the
2002 Farm Progress Show
Alleman, IA, September 17, 2002

It is a pleasure to be here at the Farm Progress Show. When they say this is the largest outdoor farm show in the country, they aren’t kidding. I’m impressed!

Today I want to talk a bit about the 2002 farm bill. As you know, the farm bill will set the course for all of agriculture, including conservation on private lands, for the next six years. It represents the single most significant commitment of resources toward conservation on private lands in the nation’s history -- nearly $13 billion over the life of the bill.

I was out in Colorado a couple of weeks ago talking to a group of ranchers, and one guy asked me why we weren’t out telling everyone about the farm bill, and how he could find out about farm bill opportunities. That made me scratch my head, because the Department of Agriculture and its agencies, including the Natural Resources Conservation Service, have been working literally day and night to get the word out.

I hope most of you here today have been getting the information you need – but for those who haven’t, here are a few tips:

First of all, run over to Conservation Central. That is the one-stop conservation information center here at the Farm Progress Show. It is on Lot 30 on West Avenue between 8th and 9th streets.

Conservation Central has representatives from 12 different organizations, including NRCS, that work with landowners on natural resources issues. So, visiting Conservation Central is the easiest way to get started learning about the new farm bill.

The next easiest way to get farm bill information is to go to the Department of Agriculture’s farm bill web site. For information on the conservation provisions of the farm bill, you can go to the farm bill section of the NRCS web site Our site contains a wealth of information on many of the new conservation programs. Just go to the NRCS home page at www.nrcs.usda.gov and click on “farm bill.” Some programs are still being defined, but we will get that information on the web site as soon as possible.

We have also been putting out press releases to get information into the hands of producers around the country as soon as rules are published or allocations for the programs are made.

And, our local offices have packets of information and have been doing presentations in communities all over the country throughout the summer and will continue to do so throughout the fall. Of course, you can always call your local NRCS office and ask.

Before everyone goes running off to Conservation Central, I want to say a few words about what we are doing to implement the conservation provisions of the farm bill.

Any of you who have been around long enough to see a farm bill put into action know that passing a farm bill is only the first step. The farm bill contains the broad outlines of what various programs would accomplish and sets the level of funding. The next step is for agencies like NRCS to work with the public and write regulations – or rules – that spell out in greater detail how the programs will work.

There is one farm bill, but many rules, because the farm bill uses many programs to achieve a variety of goals. Secretary Veneman has termed this a “portfolio” of tools for conservation. This portfolio of tools balances technical assistance, cost-sharing, land retirement, and also a new stewardship incentives program.

Implementing the farm bill will require writing 100 rules, all but the simplest of them involving extensive input from farmers and ranchers and others who are affected by the farm bill. We have already started this process, so that we can get rules into place as quickly as possible.

We want to make the rules as simple as possible. We also want to make the rule making process fully collaborative. And, we want to keep as much decision making as possible at the local level, so that local people have as much control of their programs as possible. Some programs have no changes or only prescriptive changes, and we will expedite the regulatory process. Other programs, including the new Conservation Security Program, will go through the formal rule making process, including a period of public comment.

Deputy Secretary Jim Moseley calls this approach “lean and local. Lean means keeping the rules short and simple. Local means keeping as keeping as much decision making in local hands as we can.

So far, for conservation programs, USDA has published two final rules, one proposed rule, one request for proposals, and one notice of fund availability in the Federal register.

I am excited about the new farm bill because it gives us the ability to implement win-win solutions, supported by the Federal Government and led by local conservation leaders and landowners, operators, and managers, who are the stewards of the land.
The farm bill emphasizes conservation on working lands. It provides the most dramatic growth in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. The new farm bill provides more than $5.5 billion over six years. On the first of August, Secretary Veneman announced the release of $227 million for EQIP nationwide, in addition to the $187 million released last spring. We are using this money to provide financial and technical assistance to farmers, ranchers, and tribes. Of the additional $227 million, $200 million is for general enrollment for EQIP yet this fiscal year. An additional $25 million is being used to provide technical and financial assistance for ground and surface water conservation, including cost-share payments, incentive payments, and loans for irrigation improvements, conversion to less water-intensive crops, and dryland farming.

Several features of EQIP under the new farm bill are of considerable interest:

• Designating at least 60 percent of the increased funding to livestock production practices.
• Lifting of the animal unit cap.
• Raising the maximum cost share to $450,000 per individual or entity.
• Eliminating the “bid down” provision (competitive cost-share reduction among program participants).
• Making livestock operations eligible to receive cost- share payments for waste storage facilities.
• Eliminating conservation priority areas
• Raising the cost share limit for limited resource producers and beginning farmers 90 percent.
• Allowing payment to producers in the same year as the contract.
• Reducing the minimum length of an EQIP contract to 1 year after the implementation of all practices.

The farm bill also contains a provision to maintain the trust between operators and NRCS by making your conservation plan information confidential.

Additionally, the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program increases to $360 million over six years under the new farm bill.

The Conservation Security Program will provide payments for producers who have historically practiced good stewardship on their agricultural lands and incentives for those who want to do more.

The new farm bill also permanently authorizes the Resource Conservation and Development Program to promote protection of natural resources and improvement of local economies.

In addition, land retirement programs, such as the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetland Reserve Program, have significant increases in their acreage caps.

The new farm bill provides for several other programs to protect working farmland, including the Farmland Protection Program and the Grasslands Reserve Program. The Farmland Protection Program will have nearly $600 million over six years. A request for proposals for $50 million in funding was recently published in the Federal Register. The new Grasslands Reserve Program will have a quarter of a billion dollars in mandatory spending to enroll up to two million acres of farmland.

Finally, the new farm bill includes several watershed-based programs.

That, in brief is the farm bill. Remember, if you want more information right now, all you have to do is go to Conservation Central.

In conclusion, let me say that the next few years promise to be the next golden age of conservation on America’s working lands. We can’t take anything away from what our fathers and mothers, our grandfathers and grandmothers, did for conservation during the dust bowl and subsequent years.

As I mentioned earlier, the new farm bill represents the single greatest commitment of resources to conservation on working private lands that this nation has ever seen. Thirteen billion dollars in six years for conservation is a huge investment. Now we all need to get together and do what it takes to conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment – and, at the same time, maintain and improve the profitability of our agricultural operations.

Let’s roll up our sleeves and get the job done.

Thank you.