Practicing Precision Conservation

Remarks prepared for delivery by Arlen L. Lancaster, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service, to agency employees attending the National Accountability Conference
Salt Lake City, Utah
August 25, 2008

INTRODUCTION

Thanks, Kathy [Gugulis]. Good afternoon.

As a former resident of Utah and a graduate of the University of Utah, let me be the first to welcome all of you to the Beehive State and to say, “Go Utes!”

It is impossible to live in a state as beautiful as Utah and not be passionate about natural resources and the outdoors. It is also impossible to live here, or anywhere in the West, and not become sensitive to the need for sound conservation policy aimed at improving the quantity and quality of water and wildlife habitat—two big interests of mine.

I recently shared with the National Leadership Team that I had considered making water and wildlife habitat improvement my priorities when I was named as Chief. But, to paraphrase Gifford Pinchot, I came to realize that we have the capacity as an agency to do even greater good, for more resources, in the long run.

The way we do greater good is by improving how we do our work—by investing in practices, programs, policies and procedures that deliver results. The three priorities I ultimately chose support that goal, by making conservation easier, by preparing the agency to meet future challenges, and by making us more accountable.

NOW, MORE THAN EVER

The need to improve how we do our work is greater than ever in the history of NRCS and so is the potential for doing so, thanks to support from Congress and advantages offered by technology.

During the past decade, there have been two national reorganizations of administrative and programmatic functions within the agency, as well as two new farm bills which have increased our funding threefold.

The new farm bill promises more funding for conservation on agricultural lands than even the historic 2002 legislation that preceded it—nearly $4.2 billion more over the life of the bill.

We have never before had that kind of money to help people help the land. It is both tremendously exciting and a tremendous responsibility. The nation is not only investing its hard-earned dollars in conservation; it is placing its trust in our ability to make good on that investment.

Fulfilling that public trust is why we are here this week, and why this is a critical time for the future of our agency.

Some of you are painfully aware that we are currently undergoing a major financial audit, on top of reports from the OIG, GAO and our own internal Oversight and Evaluations studies identifying opportunities for improvement.

I am not a big fan of big meetings. In almost all cases, I would rather see the money we spend on meetings spent on other things. But this is definitely one of those times that it makes sense to bring together everyone responsible for NRCS programs at the state and local levels—our admin officers, administrative team members, and program managers—to review and revise our internal controls, financial management and other relevant processes.

I consider this conference to be nothing short of a necessity, and I have very high expectations for its outcomes.

AN ACCOUNTABILITY PHILOSOPHY

I said earlier that we can do the greatest good for natural resources by investing in practices, programs, policies and procedures that deliver results. Let me add another word beginning with “p” to that list, and suggest that we must also invest in a management and operational philosophy centered on accountability. As we meet this week, I want you to approach everything we talk about with the principle of accountability in mind.

So, what do I mean when I say we must be accountable? Maurice McTigue, who is the director of the Government Accountability Project at George Mason University, speaks and writes a lot on this subject. Let me summarize some of his thoughts.

First, he insists that “for government, the only measure of a program’s success is whether citizens get measurable, beneficial results.”

Let me repeat that, because I think it is really fundamental to our mission this week: “For government, the only measure of a program’s success is whether citizens get measurable, beneficial results.”

McTigue resents when government equates achievement with the amount of money spent. Most of us in government have to admit to having done that—to having said in a year-end accomplishments report that we spent $33 million on such-and-such a program in 90 counties resulting in 270 new contracts.

I know I’ve done it, and I know from my time on the Hill that plenty of other people do it, too.

You know what McTigue would say about that kind of so-called accomplishment? He would say: So what! And then he would ask: But what did you get for my money? How are citizens better off from the expenditure? Is more soil staying put? Are fewer fertilizers and pesticides entering our waterways? Is the air cleaner? Are lands more productive? And, if so, why is that important to each American?

I won’t ask for a show of hands, but I bet most of us in this room have had the experience of feeling more pressure to achieve obligation rates than to demonstrate material contributions to a healthier environment. We can’t continue to confuse activity with accomplishment, which is why we are adopting the Balanced Scorecard and other performance management tools to help us stay focused on producing results.

McTigue defines accountability as taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions. This includes the notion of transparency, which he sees as a component of accountability.

Being transparent means being able to explain to people how we arrived at certain decisions that affect them—for example, how we determine program eligibility or the process through which we rank applicants for financial assistance.

Being transparent means that our customers can easily find information about our products and performance, the information is in a readable format, and is timely and factual.

I am sure some of you read recently that our Website was rated one of the lowest-scoring in government by the American Customer Satisfaction Index, based on factors like functionality and ease of navigation.

We may feel bad about that because it is embarrassing to be singled out so publicly. But, we should also actively regret it, because a Website that is neither easy to use nor thoughtful in its content reduces our transparency and makes it harder to help people help the land.

Of course, this was not a newsflash to us and we have a team looking at how we can inject more consistency and user-friendliness into our Web efforts. But until the problem is solved, we will miss opportunities to provide “actionable” information to those who come looking for it.

That is not acceptable, because being accountable means finding ways to make sure that every taxpayer who is eligible for conservation technical and financial assistance knows it is available to them; in other words, that we reach beyond our familiar customer base to connect with producers outside the ag mainstream. That includes those with limited resources, small acreages, aquatic or organic operations, and so on.

Being accountable also means that we can tie an outlay of dollars or staff time to outputs and outcomes on the ground. Further, it means—as McTigue challenges us to do—that we must fund and operate only those tools and programs that are truly effective. To get there, we must commit ourselves to assessing and reassessing the impacts of our policies and practices to ensure financial and human capital is invested where it will do the most good.

PROGRESS REPORT

It occurs to me that in stating my case this afternoon, I may have given you the impression that I think we haven’t been accountable, responsible or transparent in the past. That is not at all my intention.

To the contrary, I strongly believe that one of the reasons we received funding increases for conservation in the 2008 Farm Bill—despite budget constraints—was your superb work in delivering the 2002 Farm Bill. But those of you who have been around awhile know that increased funding doesn’t arrive without baggage; it brings with it greater expectations, higher risk, more responsibility and more scrutiny.

Without doubt, it is more complex to manage FY08’s EQIP account of $1.2 billion, for example, than it was to manage EQIP funding in 1996, when it totaled a few hundred million dollars. Fortunately, agency leadership realized the growing requirement for more sophisticated management practices and reporting capability, and began moving us in that direction several years ago.

The ongoing audit will further identify necessary internal controls we can put in place, along with supporting tools and guidance that will ensure we can retain the public’s trust in our financial management.

I really cannot overstate the importance of this to our organization. It is a key reason we recently elevated our chief financial officer position to deputy chief for financial management. This change prepares us to meet new challenges and to prioritize accountability and transparency.

As I said, accountability and transparency are not new to us. State Technical Committees are a terrific example of how we let the sun shine into our planning and decision-making processes, as are Local Working Groups that address the needs of diverse stakeholders.

We will always operate within budget constraints. We will never have enough staffing or funding to do all the things we are asked to do, or that we want to do as committed conservationists. Given that reality, we will always have to juggle competing interests.

Again, doing that successfully requires a thorough understanding of the impacts of conservation on the land. That understanding will help us direct financial and human resources where they will do the most good. And that journey begins with CEAP.

CEAP

As a congressional staffer in 2001, I worked with my boss to draft a proposal for the 2002 Farm Bill to require the Secretary of Agriculture to develop and implement a “conservation accounting system.” Its purpose was to assess how participation in conservation programs affects natural resources.

We wanted to measure the gains and losses resulting from the nation’s investment in conservation on working lands—to be able to say definitively, “this is what certain practices do, and if you take them away, this is what will happen.”

Although the language changed a bit during the legislative process, it led eventually to the Conservation Effects Assessment Project, which has now been in place since 2003. I have recently signed off on the vision statement that will guide CEAP through its next five years. Thanks to an unbelievable amount of hard work by NRCS, ARS, CSREES and literally dozens of partners, I am gratified that we will shortly have in our hands data to illustrate where, when and how the financial and technical assistance we provide makes a difference on the landscape.

As more data and results become available to us, we will be able to accurately characterize the return on taxpayers’ and producers’ investments in conservation. Instead of just saying, as I have on many occasions since coming to NRCS, that actions taken on private lands yield public benefits we all enjoy, we’ll be able to show it. Talk about transparency!

And we will be able to begin to predict where future investments should be made to generate the biggest dividends—those “greater goods” that were my focus when I became Chief. The need to address producers on a farm-to-farm basis will never go away. But, we must become more exacting in our application of conservation by recognizing that not all investments in conservation are equal once you move off the edge of the field.
We are all familiar with precision farming, a method producers use to precisely apply seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, water and other inputs to the land. The objective is to minimize waste and maximize results. CEAP will provide the foundation for practicing what I like to think of as “precision conservation”, wherein we more precisely apply our “inputs”—technical and financial assistance, insights from the National Resources Inventory, and so forth—to maximize results for farmers, ranchers and the environment.

THE CHARGE

…And that is a nice segue back to McTigue’s admonition about the only measure of a program’s success being whether citizens get measurable, beneficial results. This week, I urge you to keep accountability and transparency in mind as you tackle the wide-ranging issues that make up our daily work.

I also ask you to use our strategic plan and my other priorities—making conservation easier and preparing the agency to meet future challenges—as additional touchstones in your deliberations.

Keep asking hard questions: Can our processes be more consistent and compatible from place to place? Can we intelligently employ technology—more “3-click” tools, say, to meet the needs of tech-savvy customers—to free up time and attention for others who require more personal interaction? Or create more avenues for producer self-certification or self-assessment?

Can we better protect cooperators’ privacy while making more data available to citizens, enhancing both security and transparency?

What information can we give to colleagues, communities, farmers, ranchers and other partners that will help them better understand our priorities, practices, policies and procedures? How do we remove barriers to encourage participation by currently underserved groups, to get more conservation on the ground?

How can we make what Congress gave us in the new farm bill even better? Where the 2002 Farm Bill was historic in terms of funding, let’s make the 2008 Farm Bill historic in conservation accomplishments.

Approach this week with a philosophy of accountability and you will see we are able to do greater good than ever before—moving the nation closer to achieving our vision of productive lands and a healthy environment.

Thank you for all you do, every day and everywhere across America, to fulfill the public’s trust and to ensure that agriculture is a valued and enduring component of our national landscape. It is my privilege to lead you.

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