Opening Remarks by NRCS Chief Bruce I. Knight
FSA-NRCS All-Employee Meeting

July 25, 2002
 

Thank you, Dann.

Good afternoon. At least it is after noon for many of you. Good morning to those of you in the Pacific Time Zone and beyond. And good afternoon, Jim. And to our studio audience.


These are, indeed exciting times for those of us in FSA and NRCS. The new farm bill represents a level of investment in conservation that has not been present in any previous farm bill. And we are in charge of implementing it.

I’m glad Secretary Veneman was able to tape her remarks to open today’s teleconference. She is the number-one force behind mobilizing all of us in the Department of Agriculture to implement the new farm bill. And as she said in her remarks, she is a strong supporter of building a closer working relationship between NRCS and FSA to get the job done.

I am excited to be a part of the first-ever, national, all-employee meeting of our two agencies. This meeting is one more step in building a stronger spirit of cooperation between our Agencies, and a step toward providing even better service to our customers and the taxpayers.

Building this relationship was one of the points the Secretary and other top USDA officials stressed when they were talking to me about being Chief of NRCS. In May, during my second week on the job, the Secretary held a meeting to address all USDA employees on farm bill implementation.

She said then that “Much of the implementation burden now falls to FSA and NRCS, who have the lion’s share of the bill’s provisions.” She announced the formation of the USDA Farm Bill Working Group to coordinate implementation of the farm bill. She charged all of us to streamline our programs and reduce the red tape.

She also mentioned that Jim and I had already been meeting regularly to discuss how NRCS and FSA could better work together, particularly on implementing the various farm bill programs. Jim and I continue our regular meetings, as do members of our staffs.

As you know, less than a month later the Secretary announced the streamlining of the administrative concurrence processes for the Conservation Reserve Program and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program.

As the Secretary mentioned in her remarks at the start of this program, CRP and EQIP decisions used to require formal concurrence by both FSA and NRCS. Now FSA makes the CRP decisions and NRCS makes the EQIP decisions, with informal consultation between the agencies at all levels. Simplifying the process means quicker decisions for our customers, which adds up to better service overall.

I am confident that the streamlined processes for CRP and EQIP are just the first in many areas of cooperation between our agencies in implementing the farm bill.

Our two agencies are already cooperating in other areas to give better service.

On a national level, some of our electronic services, such as e-forms, are already integrated to provide one-stop service. And there is more to come.

On the local level, we are already office mates in many communities around the country. Co-location is a strong message in support of one-stop service.

But our web presence – and the signs on our buildings – are only the outward symbols of cooperation between our agencies. Effective cooperation comes one relationship at a time.

That is the way Jim and I are building our relationship – through meeting regularly together to discuss our common issues and how to serve our customers better.

We would like to challenge you to build relationships the same way. Heads of office at the local, area, state, and region levels can get together regularly, just as Jim and I do, and build relationships that work.

Regular contact between those who do the work in our offices can also lead to greater understanding of the roles of our two agencies, and a greater spirit of cooperation.

I hope those of you who are participating in today’s teleconference will take the message of cooperation to heart and take steps to build relationships across Agency boundaries.

The better we work together, the better service we can give our customers and the more fun we can have doing it.

Thank you.