Time to celebrate

Excerpt

I think we should take a moment to celebrate the summer of 2004. I say that because I think the summer of 2004 will be remembered for two important milestones in the recent history of our Society. In May, we issued our two-year evaluation of the implementation of the conservation provisions of the 2002 farm bill entitled “Realizing the Promise of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002: How Implementation of the Conservation Provisions Measures Up.” This report culminated four years of work trying to shape the conservation provisions of the farm bill—one of the two priorities that has dominated our efforts over the past five years.

The second priority was recovering the financial strength of the Society and this summer marked an important turning point in that effort too. As of the end of July, we paid off our debt to our endowment funds—the final step in our financial recovery plan. That debt was incurred in 1997 and 1998 when endowment funds were used to cover shortfalls in operating expenses …