Testimony of Dr. Colien Hefferan, Administrator
Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service,
United States Department of Agriculture
Research, Extension and Education
Programs Related to Private Forests
Before the Department Operations, Oversight,
Nutrition, and Forestry Subcommittee of
the House Agriculture Committee
June 28, 2001
Mr. Chairman. Thank you for this opportunity
to appear before the Subcommittee. My name
is Colien Hefferan, and I am the Administrator
of USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education,
and Extension Service. CSREES is the agency
of USDA which engages the national university-based
agricultural knowledge system to develop
science-based solutions and technologies
to help farmers, ranchers, private forest-owners
and rural communities remain productive
and profitable in the face of considerable
challenges.
Today I am appearing before the subcommittee
to discuss the contributions that CSREES'
programs make to the sustainability of
the United States' expansive and diverse
private forests. Working through the 105
land-grant colleges and universities and
fourteen other forestry programs, CSREES
supports the education of agricultural
and natural resource professionals, the
discovery of new knowledge by university
scientists, and the transfer and application
of that knowledge to solve real-world problems.
CSREES supports research, extension and
education activities related to private
forests through a combination of peer-reviewed
competitive grants, formula funds and Congressionally
determined priority projects. I would like
to highlight four of these programs for
the subcommittee.
The Cooperative Forestry Research Program,
also known as the McIntire-Stennis Program,
provides formula-based support to state-certified
institutions to train new forest scientists
in forestry and investigate important questions
about the condition of our private forests.
As a formula program, the federal investment
in McIntire-Stennis is matched, on average,
at a rate of 9 to 1 with non-federal funds,
greatly extending the federal investment
of $22 million per year. Since this program
was authorized in 1962, it has trained
thousands of forest scientists and supported
research on subjects as diverse as the
restoration of fragmented Mississippi Delta
hardwood forests, the development of improved
forest tree varieties. One McIntire-Stennis
supported project, the New York Watershed
Model Forest Program, devised forest management
practices to improve the water quality
of upstate New York reservoirs, preventing
the need for an expensive water filtering
system, saving New York City over $5 billion.
The Renewable Resources Extension Act,
or RREA, provides funding for the application
of new knowledge through Extension programs
dealing with forest and range resources.
RREA provides the impetus for natural resource
educational programming at the Nation's
land grant colleges. The federal investment
in the RREA program of $3.1 million per
year is matched 10 to 1 by non-federal
funds, increasing the reach and scope of
the programs offered. The priorities and
topics supported by RREA are determined
by the individual State Extension programs,
leading to locally relevant solutions.
The program supports the development programs
to educate private forest landowners on
issues ranging from improved forest management
to reduce environmental impacts of harvesting
to teaching landowners how to market their
forest-based resources more effectively.
One example of an RREA supported project
is the work done by the Kentucky Cooperative
Extension Service to train loggers in harvesting
techniques that protect forest sustainability
and water quality. As a direct result of
this work, logging practices have been
improved on 900,000 acres leading to healthier
forests and cleaner surface water.
The CSREES National Research Initiative
funds basic discovery research on key problems
of national and regional importance through
a peer-reviewed, competitive process. In
fiscal year 2000 the NRI awarded over $4
million for research related to the improved
production, management and utilization
of forest products. Grant awards are supporting
research into:
- fire regimes and ecosystem interactions
at the University of Montana,
- how the natural re-growth of commercially
important canopy trees are inhibited
by subcanopy evegreen shrubs at Virginia
Polytechnic Institute, and
- the effects of insects, deer browsing
and fire on the failure of natural oak
regeneration at University of Pittsburgh.
The Agricultural Research, Extension,
and Education Reform Act of 1998 authorized
the Initiative for Future Agriculture and
Food Systems at $120 million per year.
This program integrates research, extension,
and education to explore and solve priority
problems and has become one of our most
popular grant programs, receiving over
$1 billion in requests each of the past
two years. One section of the program deals
specifically with the needs of private
forest and rangeland owners. Last year
this program awarded $4 million to a three
state consortium for research, extension
and education programs targeting the needs
of private forest owners in the Central
Hardwood region of the US, Indiana, Missouri,
and Kentucky.
Taken together with the support for research
and extension through the Hatch, Smith-Lever,
and 1890 institution formula funds and
1994 Land Grant programs these programs
form a continuum of cutting edge technology,
management solutions and education programs
for the nation's growing number of private
forest landowners and managers.
But these are not stand-alone programs.
As forest owners learn and understand more
about their forests, they often need and
desire assistance beyond the scope of our
research, education and extension mission.
Therefore, these university-based programs
must be complimented by the technical and
financial assistance programs administered
by the USDA Forest Service, Natural Resources
Conservation Service and Farm Services
Agency.
University-based extension educators and
research scientists work closely with other
USDA agencies, particularly the Forest
Service and Natural Resources Conservation
Service, to provide relevant and timely
educational programs. This is most evident
at the state level, where extension educators
work closely with state forestry agencies
and district conservationists. In most
cases this relationship works well, but
we need to find ways to strengthen and
expand our cooperative efforts.
There are many examples where Federal
agency staff work very effectively with
Federally-supported university scientists
and educators. For instance, the land-grant
universities have had a long-standing arrangement
with the Forest Service and State Foresters
in the Southern Region. Together, the Forest
Service staff and the extension educator
develop and deliver programs that meet
the needs of our mutual stakeholders. This
model may be applicable for a nationwide
cooperative effort.
Land-grant colleges and forestry programs
are also engaged directly with the Forest
Service in cooperative research programs
where the projects are jointly planned,
supervised, and funded. University scientists
collaborate with forest service scientists
at locations across the nation on issues
ranging from genetic improvement of tree
species, development of new forest products,
forest ecosystem management and fire risk
reduction. In many cases Forest Service
scientists are co-located on land grant
university campuses. This arrangement provides
the physical and human resources to conduct
research programs that neither institution
could undertake alone.
Forestry, like agriculture in general,
is a science-based, global enterprise.
As this subcommittee considers a forestry
program for the upcoming Farm Bill, I would
like to emphasize that the focus of our
forestry programs at the Cooperative State
Research, Education, and Extension Service
is to support informed decision-making
by private forest owners for both the short-
and long-term. Informed forest owners who
are passionate about stewardship of their
resources and who become more self-sufficient
in their decision-making are the future
for sustainability on the 448 million acres
of private forests in the United States. |
