Leading the World in Conservation

Remarks by Bruce I. Knight, Chief, Natural Resources Conservation Service at the 57th Annual Meeting of the National Association of Conservation Districts
Orlando, FL
February 11, 2003

Thank you, Read (Smith). It is a pleasure to be here this morning to talk a bit about what we have accomplished during the past year and where we are headed.

This is my first time at the NACD Annual Meeting, and I am impressed. You manage to cram a lot of work into a few days. And then, you even leave a bit of time around the edges to see Disney World, Epcott, and the other attractions.

I have met with the Board of Directors and other subgroups of NACD, but this is the first time I have met with most of you. So allow me to introduce myself. First, and foremost, I am a farmer and rancher. I have a diversified grain and cattle operation in South Dakota, where I use no till and rest rotation grazing systems. My father impressed on me that, while we may be the land owners, we are really just the stewards of the land. That is how I have run my operation.

I am also a public policy person. As Read pointed out, I served on Majority Leader Bob Dole’s staff, focusing on the development of the conservation title of the 1996 farm bill. I worked on a couple of other congressional staffs and as a lobbyist for the National Association of Wheat Growers and the National Corn Growers Association, where I came to appreciate the value of NACD and the conservation districts.

I am very excited about being chief of NRCS and having the chance to implement the conservation measures that I have worked on so hard over the years. It is truly an honor to join NRCS, an agency with a proud history of providing assistance to America’s farmers and ranchers. And it is an honor to be so closely associated with the conservation districts and NACD.

I’d like to begin today with one question: Are these great times for conservation, or what? Who would have thought a few years ago that we would be looking at a ten-year Federal investment in conservation of more than 38 billion dollars? In one shot, the farm bill increased total investment by more than $17 billion -- an 80% increase. Even better for farmers and ranchers, most of the increase is for improving conservation on working lands, not for idling agricultural land.

We are all going to have to work hard over the next few years to put this investment to work. But what a great position to be in -- worrying about how we can get all that conservation done.

Implementing the Farm Bill
The past year was an exciting one, starting with our work to implement the conservation provisions of the new farm bill. We had to work hard to inform people of the provisions of the new farm bill, update our practice standards for use under the new farm bill, arrange to get nearly $3/4 of a billion in farm bill money into the hands of farmers and ranchers by the end of September, and write a bunch of rules for new and existing programs.

Being More Strategic
There is still more to do to implement the farm bill, and our challenge as we continue our work is to do it more strategically.

We have to be more strategic in how we inform people of the new farm bill. We especially need to reach out more to minorities, women, and beginning farmers to make sure they have access to technical and financial assistance. We still have more rules to write and more conservation to do, with your help.

And we have to work to be very strategic and focus on priority needs at the national, state, and local levels. It is hard to believe, but even with all the new farm bill funding, we already have a backlog of applications for most programs. That means we have to meet the highest priority needs first.

We also have to be strategic about bringing in more partners who can add non-Federal dollars and help more farmers and ranchers reach their conservation goals.

Accomplishments
I want to conclude my remarks this morning with a few ideas about the future of private lands conservation, but first, I want to talk a bit about some of the things we accomplished during the last year. The farm bill didn’t take up all of our time this year. It may have felt like it did to people like me in Washington, D.C. But out in farm country and ranch country, where it counts, a lot of work was getting done.

We helped farmers and ranchers enhance natural resource productivity. With our help, they applied resource management systems on more than 22 million acres. Other landowners applied one or more treatments to address their goals having to do with erosion, irrigation, grazing, or nutrient, pesticide or wildlife management. We also helped farmers and ranchers reduce the risk of drought and flooding on 13 million acres.

In addition, we continued to deliver high-quality service to producers and others. Our offices served more than 3 million customers. We completed new soil maps or updated soil maps on 23 million acres. Our PLANTS database served 2 million costumers. And Earth Team volunteers performed more than 1 million hours of conservation work.

These are some of the accomplishments we track as part of our accountability system. They are listed in more detail in our 2002 Accomplishments Report, which is available here at the NACD Annual Meeting.

We helped advance conservation in several other ways during the year, including providing more than $100 million in drought and disaster assistance, completing more than 4,000 Resource Conservation and Development projects, updating our Field Office Technical Guide and making it available on the Internet, and developing the Technical Service Provider process as authorized in the Farm Bill. And on Earth Day, Secretary Veneman helped us tell the nation about Backyard Conservation. Our feature story on that effort reached more than 35 million readers.

I am proud of what NRCS and its partners accomplished last year, especially in light of the added impact of implementing the farm bill.

Obviously, 2002 was an exciting year. The passage of the farm bill made it also a milepost year. But, I don’t think any of us have fully realized what kind of a milepost it was. 2002 was not just the year of the farm bill. It was the last year of business as usual for all of us in the conservation partnership. The new farm bill is simply so large we cannot get the work done using our comfortable, tried and true methods and relationships. It is amazing that techniques that have worked so well for so long would suddenly require adjustment.


A World Class System

And I want to stress that we already have in this country a world-class system for conservation on private lands. We know it, but I’m not sure the World knows it. Last year, we participated in the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. I was struck that the United States was criticized during the summit for subsidizing agriculture, with no recognition of the great conservation work of our farmers and ranchers.

We simply have the best system for voluntary conservation in the World today. A system based on a unique public/private partnership, conservation done on a voluntary basis by landowners, and local leadership.

Since we already have a world-class system, imagine what we will accomplish in the future.
The world’s premier approach to private land conservation is about to get better. And our unique combination of public and private partnerships and voluntary conservation are the reason.

The power of the farm bill is that it builds on a system that has for decades made it possible for local farmers and ranchers and local leaders to make most of the decisions based on their individual and local needs. The Federal conservation program has always been intended to enable local people to reach their conservation goals.
New Approaches

The leadership of President Bush and Secretary Veneman has resulted in an increased emphasis on conservation, and in new approaches to conservation. The evidence is in the administration’s support for the historic investment in conservation contained in the farm bill and in the fact that the President’s 2004 budget request continues this strong support.

The administration is also supporting changes in how conservation gets done. We are already seeing changes that make conservation efforts less prescriptive and more enabling. We have been publishing the new rules for conservation programs under the farm bill. Deputy Secretary Jim Moseley calls our approach “lean and local.” Some people call it common-sense rulemaking. We have been making the rules as simple as possible. We also have been sure to keep the rule making process fully collaborative. And, we are keeping as much decision making as possible at the local level, so that local people have as much control of their programs as possible.

We just released the new rule for EQIP. I am proud to say that it is 1/3 shorter than the old rule.
It gives more flexibility for producers. It keeps much of the decision making at the local level. In short, it is more empowering than the old EQIP rule.

Another example of empowerment is the market-based approach to agricultural water quality trading contained in the new policy recently announced by EPA. The water quality trading policy will help states, tribes, and business develop and implement water quality trading programs that are more flexible and reduce the cost of improving and maintaining the quality of the nation's waters.

It enlists the voluntary support of America’s farmers, ranchers, and woodlot owners and operators. It will help create a market for some of the environmental goods and services that farmers and ranchers produce today as a part of their conservation efforts. I am confident that over the next few years, we will see a growth in environmental trading, both in water quality credits and in air quality credits.

The voluntary approach will have many benefits. It will help keep agricultural production profitable in this country, which will keep agricultural production in this country. That is good for our national economy, but it is also good for the environment, because production in this country is much more likely to be done using sound conservation than is production that moves overseas.

A third example of empowerment is the technical service provider provision of the farm bill. The bill recognizes that there is simply too much work in the farm bill for Federal employees to accomplish. So, the bill allows us to enable a new industry of private-sector, governmental, and non-governmental providers who can help get the job done.

We are making rapid progress toward getting the technical service provider process up and running. We are creating a site on the Internet that will give producers, districts, and others access to a registry of certified technical service providers. We are demonstrating that site in our booth in the Conservation Expo. If you get a chance this week, check it out.

We will also have to build on the conservation district foundation by expanding our partnerships with wildlife groups, conservation groups, units of government, and others who are willing to invest in conservation. Stronger partnerships will help us leverage the Federal dollar and provide more ways for every farmer and rancher to reach his or her conservation goals. This is another form of empowerment, because it allows landowners to work with all interested parties to get the job done.

For NRCS, and to some extent for NACD, the increased investment in conservation, coupled with the increased empowerment of everyone involved, creates an interesting dilemma. On the one hand, conservation is getting bigger and bigger, which is what we have always wanted. On the other hand, empowerment and flexibility mean there will be more and more partners doing conservation work, which means a less central role for us.


NRCS as a Catalyst

At NRCS, I see our role as becoming more of a catalyst. I use the word catalyst in something close to its scientific meaning. In science, a catalyst is an agent that makes a chemical reaction possible or speeds it up. I see the new NRCS as a conservation catalyst. We will work as agents to help various groups and individuals get together to make conservation happen. Our science will support conservation activities. Our technical assistance will support landowners.

The farm bill program dollars will help make things happen. But, more and more, it will be partnerships that help get the work done. Conservation will involve landowners, interested groups who support conservation activities, technical service providers, and others, all working together.


Conservation in the Future

To summarize much of what I have said this morning, I see the future of conservation taking us in several new directions.

First, we will be working to minimize regulations. There has been a tendency in this country to regard regulation as the path to environmental quality. That approach put a burden on agricultural producers that diminished their productivity and their profitability. In some cases, it shut them down. That approach ignored the natural conservation ethic of America’s farmers and ranchers and the fine work they have done over several decades to maintain and improve our natural resources.

Second, we will be doing more conservation on working lands. In the past, too many incentives were aimed at taking land out of production.

Third, we are now seeing a shift to a new way to get conservation done, through market-based incentives for such things as air and water quality.

And fourth, we are seeing programs that encourage additional investments by non-government organizations, trusts, the private sector, and state and local governments.


The Next Golden Age of Conservation

All this adds up to what I call “the next golden age of conservation.” I am excited to be a part of the next golden age, and I look forward to working with NACD, conservation districts, and each of you NACD, to help create it.

Thank you.