Although financial assistance for voluntary USDA conservation programs often grabs the headlines, the technical assistance offered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service comes first.
“In order to get the financial assistance to the programs, you do have to have a conservation plan, which is the product of the technical assistance,” explained Mike Sullivan, who since September 2010 has been NRCS State Conservationist for Arkansas. “It’s really our foundation for our overall agricultural and community assistance with NRCS, and we have basic enabling legislation that allows us to provide one-on-one assistance to producers… It’s something that’s a win-win situation in that it helps them to manage their operations, to meet their production goals and objectives, and at the same time addresses environmental issues and concerns.”
Sullivan told Ozarks Farm & Neighbor the process may begin with a producer who needs financial assistance to implement a conservation practice, and approaches the agency for help. The first step is the technical assistance, which helps the producer assess natural resource problems or concerns and identify alternatives that will make the producer eligible for aid through voluntary USDA conservation programs.
Sullivan said every step of his entire 31-year career with NRCS and its predecessor agency, the Soil Conservation Service, which has taken him to headquarters in Washington, D.C. and to several other states, has involved responsibility or activity with the technical assistance program. Conditions have changed as the years have progressed; the drought of 2012-13 presented urgent need on the part of producers to develop water sources, as well as longer-term assistance to help them manage pastureland in a way that would mitigate the impact of future droughts.
Another area of need, he said, is in forestland. “There’s a lot of land in Northwest Arkansas that has forestland in poor condition,” Sullivan said. “Over the years, some of the more desirable species have been harvested; the trees have not been managed, and producers have not had the funds to manage them really well. So you’ve seen a lot of erosion; trees are really close together, and could use quite a bit of additional management – which we help with, developing those conservation plans while working with the Forestry Commission.”
A program unique to the region is the Illinois River Sub-Basin and Eucha-Spavinaw Lake Watershed Initiative. Begun in 2010 out of the discretionary budget of then-national NRCS Chief Dave White, the program targets 576,000 acres in Arkansas and 744,000 acres in Oklahoma to address the water quality problems that have left officials and agribusinesses in the two states trading accusations and lawsuits. Despite the acrimony, Sullivan said, “What we’ve seen is a tremendous response from producers in wanting to get good conservation plans together, and then get whatever assistance may be available to put as much conservation on the ground and show that they’re doing all they can possibly do to protect water quality.” Arkansas has fully utilized the $4 million a year it gets under the program, and receives more applications than can be funded. Sullivan said much of the focus is on combined animal operations, helping poultry and pastureland operators with their manure management and nutrient plans. The Eucha-Spavinaw has been designated a Nutrient Surplus Area, and excess manure has to be transported out of the watershed; Sullivan said, “Our technical assistance includes outreach to make sure producers and others are aware of issues, concerns and opportunity, and then, the detailed conservation planning.” NRCS has also expanded its technical assistance to include energy conservation, and has helped poultry operators conduct audits that can show them how to reduce their energy consumption.
The surge in funding for NRCS voluntary programs over the last five years has created an imbalance; Sullivan said money for technical assistance has remained static, so they have not been able to boost their conservation plan assistance to match the increase in demand. He said that will hopefully change in FY2014: “There was a decision to recouple technical assistance needs with financial assistance needs, so we’re hoping when we see our funding for this year we see a little better picture in reconnecting and addressing the workload with the funding that comes to us.”
