conservation

Seventy percent of the land in the lower 48 states is privately owned, home to productive working farms, ranches and forests that account for much of our nation’s open space and wildlife habitat. For 80 years USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has worked side-by-side with America’s agricultural producers to help them manage their land so that they’re conserving natural resources while maintaining the productivity and profitability of their operations.

Launched in 2012, the Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) partnership uses this win-win approach to systematically target conservation efforts to improve agricultural productivity while enhancing wildlife habitat in landscapes that are home to seven focal species.

Growing up in Tanzania, East Africa, Sangiwa Eliamani became a skilled farmer producing rice, millet and cotton throughout the year, using typical hand tools. He had no concerns about seasonal timing or finding markets for his crops, until he moved to the United States and attempted to farm in Massachusetts.

“Over there [in Tanzania] it’s very different,” he said. “We don’t have this limited time to grow.  We have easier access to land and markets to sell our products.”

2015 was a banner year for voluntary conservation efforts in the United States.  Whether protecting the farmlands, grasslands and wetlands with partnership efforts and conservation easements, helping new farmers get started with conservation on smaller scale farms or providing conservation solutions for organic, transitioning-to-organic and conventional farms or ranches across the country, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service celebrates the voluntary, private-lands conservation efforts of the partners, farmers and ranchers. Together they represent some of the strongest stewards of the American landscape. Here are five 2015 stories that highlight a big year for conservation:

A just-completed project that restored a fish passage in southern Maine may have another benefit – preventing an environmental disaster on important salmon-spawning streams.

A new bridge that now crosses the Swan Pond Creek at the Al Dube Quarterhorse Farm in York County was the culmination of a year-long quest by the Saco River Salmon Club and Hatchery and the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to rehabilitate a section of the creek for fish passage and rearing of juvenile salmon.

Today, one-in-six Americans lives in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau—and 90 percent of counties with the highest poverty rates are in rural America. These are also communities with high numbers of historically underserved groups, like African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Native Americans.

Last year, McIntosh Sustainable Environment and Economic Development (SEED) partnered with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) with the goal of improving delivery of NRCS programs to Georgia’s socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers in USDA StrikeForce counties.  SEED is a grassroots, community-based organization with a mission to improve social, economic, environmental and cultural interests of the community while providing quality education, better housing, recreational facilities, business opportunities and environmental protection and restoration.

If you have accessed the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s (AMS) list of certified organic operations recently, you may have noticed a new look to the site, and new ways to search for organic operations.  These changes reflect an early release of the Organic INTEGRITY Database, a system funded by the 2014 Farm Bill and built by the AMS National Organic Program and Information Technology Service with support from Intact and Harmonia Holdings Group.  

The changes you see on the site are only a small part of the database development project.  For example, underlying the new site is a brand new classification system (or taxonomy) for categorizing products that carry USDA organic certification. Previously, organic certifiers reporting farm and business information to USDA submitted a single text list of certified products for each operation.  Certifiers reported data differently and there was no method to catch spelling or spacing problems. For example, one listing included the item “grapechickenapples.” An interesting appetizer or, a big data quality problem!

Raising clams was always a part of Michael McCarthy’s life — until Sept. 11, 2001.

McCarthy was working with the New York/New Jersey Harbor relay program, purging and harvesting clams, when terrorists crashed two airplanes into the World Trade Center. “You could look across the water and see the towers. That was my motivation. We were shut down for a couple of weeks and that’s when I decided to join the Marines. I knew I wasn’t going to do it for the rest of my life, but I felt like I did something to help a little bit.”

Consumer demand for organic products continues to grow. The Organic Trade Association that represents more than 8,500 organic businesses across 50 states reports that demand for organic products exceeded $39 billion in 2014. To meet that demand, more farmers and ranchers are pursuing organic certification and seeking assistance through USDA programs.

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is making sure that its people in the field are prepared to work with organic producers and those who want to get into organics. The agency has just released to staff its new Organic Farming Handbook describing things they need to know when working with organic producers.

Finding new ways to market the safety and quality of your food is the key to success in the agricultural industry. This is especially true for our small and mid-sized growers who are looking to expand to various outlets. These growers are now turning to produce auctions as a way to sell their food to a wider range of customers such as retail wholesale buyers and farmers markets outside their local communities. 

In a recent trip to the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction in Dayton, Va., I saw approximately 400 growers use this auction to share their bountiful harvest. Taking place several times a year, the largest wholesale auction in Virginia is an excellent alternative market for small growers. Prospective buyers bid intensely to procure large lots of fruits, vegetables, flowers, bedding plants, trees and shrubs, fall decor (pumpkins, mums, gourds), and compost, to name a few.

This is a great time of the year for the Farm Service Agency (FSA), not just because of another successful American harvest, but because of the opportunity for agricultural communities throughout the country to vote for officials to represent them on FSA County Committees.

In my first year as FSA Administrator, I’ve traveled to 32 states and visited with farmers and ranchers from California to Maine. I know firsthand the impact of successfully delivered farm programs in rural communities all across this great nation. Working with county committee members while serving as FSA state executive director for California and now as Administrator, I have a deep appreciation for the essential role these farmer-elected committees play in connecting FSA with the needs of local producers.