Excerpt
Passage of the Food Security Act (FSA), in 1985 represented a major milestone in getting conservation practices on the land across the United States. FSA has the potential to get every farmer in the country involved, in one way or another, in soil and water conservation. Implementation of the law, however, has presented U.S. Department of Agriculture field offices with several problems.
In the Soil Conservation Service field office in Stephenson County, Illinois, the greatest obstacle at the outset was figuring out how to complete the shear volume of work the act represented. With some brain-storming, a bit of innovation, and mostly teamwork, we discovered that a group planning process enabled us to explain most efficiently the program's options and impacts to farmers.
The process begins
The group planning process begins by identifying all potential clients. With direction and assistance from the SCS state office, a concentrated effort was undertaken to determine which producers in Stephenson County farm highly erodible land (HEL). A “swat team” including an SCS soil scientist (team leader), district employees, a group of 13 volunteers, and SCS office staff began in early January 1988 to complete all HEL determinations. After …
Footnotes
Jim Ritter Busch is a district conservationist with the Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 640 West South Street. Freeport, Illinois 61032.
- Copyright 1988 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society
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