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"Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality"
Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady to the 32nd President
of the United States.
In This Issue
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Status of Farm Bill Rules
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Focus on the Field
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California: Wish They All Could Be
California Worms
New York: Fresh Off the
Barge: A Floating Farmers Market
Ohio: For Limited Resource
and Beginner Farmers
Pacific Basin: Arbor Day in
Paradise
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Word from Washington
NRCS Initiates Competitive Sourcing (CS)
Process
Service Center Information
Management System (SCIMS) Implementation
Call for Posters and
Technical Papers
Hydrology Tools Course
Space Availability
Celebrate Women's History
Month!
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Tech Tip
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Brochures for Michigan Windbreak Releases Updated
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Status of Farm Bill Rules
Environmental Quality Incentives Program
Proposed Rule
30-day comment period closed March 12, 2003
Contact: Melvin Womack, Team Leader, at 202-720-1845
Conservation Security Program
Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
30-day comment period closes March 20, 2003
Contact: David McKay, Team Leader, at 202-720-1845
Technical Services Providers
Interim Final Rule became effective March 1, 2003
Rule amendment cleared by OMB and will be in the Federal Register within the
next few days. The policy, handbook, and amendment to the rule are on the NRCS
website at
http://techreg.usda.gov/WhatsNew.aspx.
Contact: Melissa Hammond, TSP Group Leader, at 202-720-6731
Focus on the Field
Wish They All Could Be California
Worms
With help from the NRCS Salinas field office, in addition to getting a
close-up look at state-of-the-art farm machinery, hundreds of south Monterey
County, California third-graders also learned about the valuable role that red
worms play in agriculture. At a recent Farm Day in King City, sponsored by
Monterey County Ag Education Inc., the third graders learned that earthworms are
a valuable component of the soil fauna that, along with thousands of species of
insects, bacteria, algae, fungi, and nematodes, create the living soil upon
which plants thrive. While this species is in itself an essential building block
for productive agriculture, the red worm or wiggler offers a whole new range of
possibilities. Red wigglers can thrive in high-nutrient environments and eat
more than half their weight in organic matter per day. The castings they create
are a form of concentrated nutrient that can be used for fertilizer, soil
building, and pest control.
The children also got a lesson in Backyard Conservation by learning that the
most common domestic use of this worm is to transform kitchen food waste into a
garden amendment through a process known as vermicomposting. Commercial
application of this same concept has led to the use of red worms to begin
consuming the mountains of manure generated by dairies and feed lots around the
country. Unfortunately, the worms don't relish the high nutrient content of
fresh manure, so composters must first leach the nutrients into containment
ponds. The worms then can quickly reduce the bulky waste into concentrated
castings that can be sold as fertilizer. Watsonville-based Panua Farms has gone
into business raising worms for animal waste composters in other parts of the
State.
In another application, Cranford, Inc, a Spreckels-based compost production
company, has incorporated vermicomposting as a tool to process green waste. The
resulting castings, when added to vegetable beds, provide a balanced source of
nutrients, improve water retention in the soil, and suppress weeds.
Your contact is Daniel Mountjoy, NRCS resource conservationist, at 831-754-1595,
or daniel.mountjoy@ca.usda.gov.
Fresh Off the Barge: A Floating Farmers Market
The Lower Hudson-Long Island Resource Conservation and Development Council (LH-LI
RC&D) Inc., has developed a Fresh from the Barge, floating farmers market. They
use the historic barge, Pennsylvania, to demonstrate how the Hudson River can be
used as an alternative transportation corridor to bring fresh, locally grown
foods to Hudson River Valley communities, New York City, and Long Island. To
raise project awareness and funding, Fresh from the Barge will support a farmers
market at the annual Riverfest on the Yonkers waterfront. Additionally LH-LI
RC&D proposes to have the barge present at several events at historic Hudson
River locations that will feature Hudson Valley/New York State food and drink
prepared by local chefs.
Your contact is Joseph Heller NRCS RC&D coordinator, at 914-923-4866, or
joseph.heller@ny.usda.gov.
For Limited Resource and Beginner Farmers
NRCS will present the first conference in Ohio this year designed to provide
2002 Farm Bill information to limited resource farmers, beginner farmers, and
newly established farmers cooperatives. This informative daylong-conference,
Ohio's Farm Bill Forum, is scheduled for March 22, 2003, at the USDA Service
Center in Wilmington, Ohio. The conference will highlight the conservation
provisions of the 2002 Farm Bill and acquaint limited resource and minority
farmers with the wide array of financial and technical assistance available to
them. They will also learn about the Conservation Security Program and new rules
for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program for limited resource and
beginner farmers. Additionally, participants will learn about local soil and
water conservation district infrastructure and activities.
Your contact is Tomika Walker, at 614-255-2496, or e-mail at
tomika.walker@oh.usda.gov.
Arbor Day in Paradise
As in the past 5 years, again this year in Samoa, NRCS, American Samoa
Community College-Division of Community and Natural Resources, Forestry Program
and Tausagi, a group of environment educators will plant trees at 15 different
elementary schools during Arbor Day week. The theme for Arbor Day was Adopt a
Watershed. The event provides an effective means of getting the conservation
message to school children through the fun, hands-on activity of planting
lagaali and Norfolk pine. The event also was a good opportunity to teach the
elementary school children about watersheds and the value of tree planting in
Samoa.
Your contact is Pona T. Ala, NRCS public affairs trainee, at 684-633-1031, or
pona.ala@pb.usda.gov.
Word from Washington
NRCS Initiates Competitive Sourcing
(CS) Process
NRCS recently rolled out the national CS process – one of the President’s
Management Initiatives designed to reduce operating costs and improve services
to the public. CS will open commercial functions currently performed by the
Federal government to competition with the private sector. Training was also
recently provided to all States where CS representatives will be studying mail
and supply, clerical, soil conservation technical services, and soil mapping
functions. On the national level, studies will be conducted on geological
analysis, civil engineering technical services, and cartography functions at the
National Cartographic and Geospatial Center in Fort Worth. The State studies for
fiscal year 2003 will be completed this fiscal year while the national studies
will be completed in mid-fiscal year 2004. For more information, visit the NRCS
competitive sourcing website at http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/feature/natcompsource/index.html.
Your contact is Patty Brown, NRCS National Competitive Sourcing Team Leader, at
904 285-3404, or patty.brown@usda.gov.
Service Center Information Management System (SCIMS)
Implementation
SCIMS, currently being implemented in NRCS, will eventually become the
County-Based Agency (Farm Service Agency, NRCS, Rural Development) common
customer database. In anticipation of this effort, all NRCS State offices are
formulating and implementing plans to train service center employees to enter
and edit data in SCIMS. TechReg will be the first e-Gov application to make
direct use of SCIMS. Additional NRCS applications using SCIMS will be released
within the next 6 months. A refresher PowerPoint training presentation that
covers the WEBREG, WEBCAAF and SCIMS process (SCIMS and WebCAAF Refresher) is
available at
http://www.info.usda.gov/egovtraining/.
Your contacts are Ken Tootle, NRCS National SCIMS Coordinator, 817-509-3299, or
Terry Buettgenbach, NRCS business area specialist, at 970-295-5552.
Call for Posters and Technical Papers
The Natural Resources Committee of the National Organization of Hispanic
NRCS Employees (NOPHNRCSE) is calling for posters and technical papers for the
training conference on
June 17-19, 2003 in Des Moines, Iowa. The conference theme is "Welcoming the
Challenges of Conservation Opportunities." If you have been working on an
innovative project or a unique way to reach out to minority farmers and
ranchers, please consider presenting a poster or a technical paper. Selected
presenters may attend on government time and expense with approval from their
supervisor.
If you are interested in making a technical paper presentation or a poster at
the NOPHNRCSE conference, please send a one page abstract or a poster proposal,
by April 18, to Juan C. Hernández, at 717-334-2317, ext.101, or email at
juan.hernandez@pagettysbu.fsc.usda.gov.
Hydrology Tools Course Space Availability
There is still room in the NEDC course, Hydrology Tools for Wetland
Determination and Restoration, to be offered April 8-10, 2003, in St. Louis,
Missouri. This course covers analytical tools (Chapter 19 EFH) that can be used
to make wetland hydrology determinations and to also assist in planning
successful hydrology restorations. Although interested NRCS employees should be
able to enroll through CAMS (with proper supervisory approvals), they should
also e-mail the course training technician, Valerie Gilley, at
vgilley@ftw.nrcs.usda.gov, if
they would like to attend. This course is open to NRCS and other Federal
agencies as well.
Your contact is Paul B. Rodriguez, NRCS wetland hydrologist, at 662-232-2973, or
prodrigue@ars.usda.gov.
Celebrate Women's History Month!
The official theme for this year’s celebration is “Women Pioneering the
Future." Schools and communities will celebrate the month with special
curriculum and events; many States and cities have extended the observance
year-round by creating women's halls of fame.
The first International Women's Day was March 8, 1911. In 1981, U.S.
Representative Barbara Mikulski and U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch cosponsored a Joint
Congressional Resolution proclaiming the week of March 8 as National Women's
History Week. In 1986, the National Women's History Project helped expand the
celebration to the entire month of March. In 1987 and subsequent years, National
Women's History Month resolutions have been approved by Congress. Check out the
many interesting events highlighting Women's History Month by visiting
http://www.nwhp.org/whm/themes/theme03.html.
Your contact is Barbara Compton, NRCS National Federal Women's Program Manger,
at 301-504-2183.
Tech Tip
Brochures for Michigan Windbreak
Releases Updated
Information about plant species suitable for windbreaks is critical in
current NRCS efforts to improve air quality. Detailed brochures for 2 windbreak
species released by the Plant Materials Center at Rose Lake, Michigan, have
recently been updated and reprinted for field office use. Both releases are
adapted for use in the Great Lakes region. Leelanau Germplasm is a selection of
the native shrub, highbush cranberry. It was selected for use in windbreaks on
organic or wet soils and can be used as an alternative to introduced shrubs for
landscaping, aesthetics, and wildlife plantings. 'Affinity' northern white
cedar is a native tree selection intended for use in field and farmstead
windbreaks and in screen or border plantings in recreational and urban
settings. It is also an important source of winter browse for wildlife.
Your contact is John Rissler, Manager, NRCS Rose Lake Plant Materials Center, at
517-641-6300, or
john.rissler@mi.usda.gov.
Please send correspondence and material for "NRCS This Week" to the editor by: e-mail to: fred.jacobs@usda.gov or by fax to: Editor, "NRCS This Week," 202-720-1564; or by mail to: Editor, "NRCS This Week," NRCS, P.O. Box 2890, Washington, D.C. 20013.
You can receive NRCSTW via e-mail by sending an e-mail to:
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The NRCS Mission: The Natural Resources Conservation Service provides leadership in a partnership effort to help people conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment.
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