The Seventieth Anniversary of SCS/NRCS

Updated 06/03/2005

AGRICULTURE TODAY
Eric Atkinson, Radio Interviewer
Harold Klaege, KS State Conservationist (Interviewee)
April 26, 2005


ATKINSON: This is the Tuesday edition of Agriculture Today. What we’d like to note first off on today’s edition that tomorrow, April the 27th, marks the seventieth anniversary of the Natural Resources Conservation Service. It was April 27th, 1935 that this agency was launched and the services that it provides to Kansas and the nation. Harold Klaege has taken some time out of his schedule to visit with us here. He’s the State Conservationist for the NRCS here in Kansas and wishing the agency happy birthday, Harold.

KLAEGE: Yes, thank you very much. It’s been a long time. I wasn’t with the agency when we started, but I am here now.

ATKINSON: And we want to take some time today to reflect back on its origins and the many accomplishments that it has generated here in the State of Kansas. This largely started right in the throes of the dust bowl, did it not?

KLAEGE: Yes, it did. Actually it’s a throw from the Soil Erosion Service which was temporarily created in the Department of Interior to demonstrate practical conservation methods and then some fierce storms in the Great Plains and dust bowls helped Congress make that decision that they needed to have an agency established to help landowners carry out soil conservation practices.

ATKINSON: Thus it began, again, in 1935. One of the early efforts was the establishment of soil conservation districts which exist to this day. You might take us back and to tell us how that organized.

KLAEGE: Well the soil conservation districts were actually formed by under a letter from President Roosevelt suggesting to all of the states that a conservation district law be established and districts be developed so that they could have a locally led process trying to have those individuals lead the conservation efforts in each county. And in Kansas our first district in 1938 - there were 25 progressive men in Labette County and a lot of campaigning to pursuit others and the first district that established was in 1938 in Labette. The last one was established in 1954. Kansas has 105 conservation districts that NRCS works with in trying to put conservation on the land.

ATKINSON: One in each county in Kansas - and the fundamental structure of those districts and the local involvement remains largely the same as it was when these first got going Harold.

KLAEGE: Right. That particular law really hasn’t changed. It’s still based on local led, the local leadership, NRCS provides the technical support and technical guidance for those districts to help local producers try to work with conservation.

ATKINSON: The agency itself was known as the Soil Conservation Service for many years and that’s the moniker it started with. Looking at the mile posts of the agency and its activities, we’ll pick off a few here. In the mid 50's the watershed programs began. And, of course, those are still very much intact today.

KLAEGE: Yeah, in 19 - in the mid 50's Public Law 566 was enacted and I can you Kansas has a strong history in helping provide flood control to many of the public in Kansas. We’re probably number three in the country with the number of watershed structures built. We have over 800 of those built with 54 authorized projects throughout the state and so it’s been a resource that the local people have used to try to stop the flooding and erosion problems in the state.

ATKINSON: Now that may surprise some that Kansas, compared to other states, is so highly ranked - number three in the country in number of watersheds. In that we are generally arid state, most people would think of it in that light, that so it does testify to the commitment here in Kansas to flood control and water erosion control.

KLAEGE: Yes, it does and I guess the thing is that most of those are what I would call silent protectors. They’re out on the landscape now protecting the public. Many people don’t even realize those dams are up there, up in the valleys protecting and making the roads safe. You know, when it doesn’t rain no one really complains about the flooding but back in the 50's a lot of flooding occurred throughout the whole State of Kansas. It really caused a lot of concern for flood control.

ATKINSON: Infamous year 1951. In 1956 the Great Plains Conservation Program was launched, Harold. Can you remind us of what that was?

KLAEGE: That was a program to actually help producers in the western 17 states address conservation specifically for rangeland and cropland. A very successful program that ran along until 1996 and at that time that program was basically combined with the ACP Program and now is pretty much close to the Environmental Quality Incentive Program. We’re doing some of the main same things that occurred then. It’s just now the program is across the whole country.

ATKINSON: Basically that was the same concept as we see with EQIP now then?

KLAEGE: Yeah pretty much. We had the long term contracts with landowners trying to protect all of their resources on their land. Small program at that time, maybe only 25 or 35 thousand dollar contracts; we’re now uhm... we’re up to a maximum of 450 thousand dollar contracts. Same program, probably a little bit more funding than we had in the past. And the same model that was successful in the Great Plains is being used across the country now.

ATKINSON: 1967 - something came into being known as the RC&Ds - the Resource Conservation and Development Councils; those were authorized and those are picking up steam actively here in the state of Kansas, but they’ve been around awhile we find out.

KLAEGE: Yeah, they’ve been around I’d say since ‘68, the RC&Ds; Kansas has nine of those right now and with Resource Conservation and Development we really believe on locally led trying to help local communities and counties try to look at resource conservation beyond just on the farm. And what we’ve done there is we provide a coordinator to work with a council to provide a lot of technical support in helping them develop projects whether they want to try to work on erosion control, on a particular stream, or look at economic development. Some of them will help set up recycling centers, work with a bunch of producers in trying to develop grazing groups together, a number of different things but again, it’s locally led. We actually have an RC&D Council that provides guidance to our coordinator and we try to address those local issues.

ATKINSON: Now we get closer to present day, thinking back to the mid 80's - 1985 another hallmark for the agency and the conservation efforts in this state with the advent of the Conservation Reserve Program, Harold.

KLAEGE: Yeah, the Conservation Reserve Program was a great opportunity to try to protect some of our fragile lands. We had a lot of land that needed to go back into grassland and put a little stress on the agency the first few years in trying to get all of that land planned and planted back to grass.

ATKINSON: That, needless to say, is very much intact today, the CRP. It has had a monumental impact on agriculture and rural Kansas in the last, well, nearly twenty years now.

KLAEGE: Yeah, it has been almost twenty years and Kansas right now still stands at about three million acres that are in CRP. Also in 1985, I guess the monumental part was conservation compliance where it required landowners to carry out their conservation plans. That was a little difficult period of our stand for NRCS as we were trying to help producers understand the law and determine what they had to do to stay in compliance. But, we worked through that together and you know I think conservation... was more conservation put on the ground because of that particular law at that time in ‘85 than ever has been before.

ATKINSON: The most recent standout parts of the NRCS history have to do with the Farm Bills in ‘96 and 2002 because of the broad array of conservation programs that were brought to the table. Though those pieces of legislation ‘96 brought us formally - EQIP, Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, wetlands reserve and so forth. Big step forward there, Harold.

KLAEGE: Definitely was; this last year and 2005 with the advent of all those programs and the farm bill we have over 29 million dollars of cost share that we provide to local landowners and so it’s really remarkable to look back at where we were at just eight years ago.

ATKINSON: You’ve been the state conservationist since 2002 so you haven’t been around for a whole seventy years like you say, Harold, but you can keenly observe that the NRCS and its activities have had a marked impact on Kansas agriculture and land management.

KLAEGE: Yeah, I think... I think it has and working with the conservation districts and the resource conservation and the RC&Ds, it has all been a great partnership along with the State Conservation Commission. You know the... we’ve been the federal agency as the catalyst to help get a lot of these things done but they haven’t gotten done without state and local leadership.

ATKINSON: And the work is really just beginning because of, again, extensive activities that the USDA is conducting in conservation while the NRCS will still be out there as a prominent agency in this state it would appear.

KLAEGE: Yeah, I think we will be. I think it’s been a great partnership. The local landowners have shown that they do want our assistance and ah... you know we’re the only really free... as an agency the agency provides free technical service to landowners. We don’t really charge you know, anything to them, they can ask us for information to try to address a resource concern that they may have on their land.

ATKINSON: Harold, thanks for your time and happy anniversary to the NRCS. Harold Klaege is the State Conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service here in Kansas. Once more, we’ve been looking back on just a small sampling of the many accomplishments of that agency formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service since its inception April the 27th, 1935, seventy years ago tomorrow.

The folks at the state NRCS office have put together a quite fine chronology of the history of the NRCS in Kansas complete with pictures of the dust bowl days and other photos depicting SCS and NRCS activities over the seventy years. That website is www.ks.nrcs.usda.gov. Again, www.ks.nrcs.usda.gov. It’s certainly worth a look. Agriculture Today is back shortly here on the K-State radio network.