Critical Conservation Issues in Your State

[Mike Brown]

The NASCA Policy Committee would like to know what are the most critical issues affecting conservation delivery in your state. Please respond to let us know.

[David Copeland]

Staff capacity, both in terms of SWCD staff with appropriate technical training, certification, and JAA, and NRCS staff with recent reductions. In MN it is not lack of financial assistance. It is technical assistance.

[Vernon Cox]

In NC, it is insufficient number of NRCS staff to deliver conservation programs and to adequately train District technical staff that support both federal and state conservation programs.

[Doug Thomas]

Critical Issues Facing the Conservation Delivery System

1. Starting to see basic skills of SWCD Board members eroding relating to understanding their basic roles in budgeting, personnel Mgmt, and setting resource priorities.

2. workforce technical capacity. This has eroded due to retirement of a significant portion of workforce, poor retention of young employees, and drastic reduction in training and credentialling of employees.

3. We have stepped away from managing resources to managing programs at the federal level which removes flexibility to customize implementation aproaches to local conditions.

4. We need to embrace watershed approaches to address water resources and allow targeting of effort and programs to get the biggest water quality and quantity bang for the buck.

5. Administrative burden and inefficiencies of current process for entering into government programs by landowners

[bradley e spicer]

NRCS and SWCD field staff.

[Ray Ledgerwood]

Lack of enough NRCS technical assistance on USDA Programs.
Uncertainty and anxiety around federal government programs, federal government direction & leadership
Assistance from NRCS with regard to conservation planning training in other than Nebraska.

[Rob Hamilton]

Staff turnover and technical capacity at the local level is the most critical issue affecting conservation delivery. SWCD staff turnover rate in 2018 was 26 percent and over 40% among SWCD Technicians having less than 5 years experience. Staff turnover combined with USDA staff reductions has reduced the ability to efficiently deliver conservation programs locally.

[Bill Smith]

In South Dakota, it is lack of staff (district, state and federal) and staff turnover that impacts conservation delivery.

[Vince Sitzmann]

What are the critical Issues affecting conservation delivery in your state?

• Absentee landowners – 50% of land in Iowa is rented. Many are not residents in the state so they don’t have a tie to the land
• Women Landowners – Own a high percentage of farmland. Typically don’t make conservation decisions, they leave it up to the tenants who may not have the best interest of the land in mind – not enough outreach to women landowners
• Lack of adequate technical staff in the field offices – this includes selling skills
• Application and paperwork process for federal programs is complicated, time consuming for staff/applicants
• Recent transition from protecting our land (soil) to protecting the water. Addressing nitrogen losses needs to be targeted at a different audience than we have historically worked with (NHEL tiled landscape). Nitrogen reduction practices are expensive and provide very little return on investment to the landowner. Need more info on economic benefits of using cover crops/soil health.

[John Switzer]

In Michigan, there is a fundamental lack of understanding of how the conservation partnership should work at the local level. Conservation district directors, managers, and technicians don’t know their roles or responsibilities and don’t fully understand how to engage NRCS and use available programs to address local priorities. Directors don’t know what to do while the district managers find themselves taking on duties that should be done by the directors. This results in managers who don’t feel it’s their job to manage staff, so district technicians look to the state agency that funds their grant for guidance and direction. District Conservationists feel like districts are focusing only on the state’s grant funded programs and not helping with the NRCS workload at a time when NRCS staff levels are significantly low.

This problem is exacerbated by the lack of training available for district staff. Conservation issues are getting more complex and a one size fits all approach doesn’t fit anymore. Technical staff need a better understanding of the breadth of practices, when they should and shouldn’t be applied, and the tools and resources available to help address today’s resource concerns. They simply aren’t getting the training they need.

Additionally, landowners are already hesitant to work with the government. When you add the overwhelming process of enrolling in NRCS programs to the amount of time it takes to get funding, it is a huge deterrent. If landowners are willing to jump through the hoops and get funding, many NRCS practices are “over engineered” significantly increasing the cost for landowners to implement.

In the end we’re seeing, local priorities being ignored while state conservation programs and NRCS programs compete rather than complement each other. The lack of trained staff and the bureaucracy landowners must go through to get technical and financial assistance is limiting the amount of conservation being delivered by everyone.

[Frank Minch]

I tend to agree with John S. (Michigan) on this. In NJ too, there is also a fundamental lack of understanding of how the conservation partnership should work at the local level. Conservation district supervisors (directors), managers, and staff don’t know their roles or responsibilities and don’t fully understand how to engage NRCS and use available programs to address local priorities. Local priorities often remain unidentified or ignored as districts don’t understand or are reluctant to fulfill their role in the locally-led process. This problem is exacerbated by the primary focus on the regulatory program by NJ districts and the implementation of conservation planning and technical assistance completely in the hands of NRCS. Conservation issues (both agricultural and construction based) are getting more complex and district staffs need a better understanding of the tools and resources available to help address today’s resource concerns. As we seek to restore some focus on agricultural conservation needs, having limited training/certification opportunities also presents a challenge. Additionally, district supervisors are not getting the training they need.

Many landowners are hesitant to work with the government at both the state and federal levels. When you add the overwhelming process of enrolling in NRCS programs to the amount of time it takes to get funding, it is a huge deterrent.

Limited state appropriations for conservation is also a hindrance.

[Author]

Posts