Jason Weller
The Agriculture Department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has mapped the organic content of soils throughout the country, NRCS Chief Jason Weller told the House Agriculture Conservation, Energy, and Forestry Subcommittee hearing on soil health last week.

Weller added that be believes NRCS is “well equipped” to provide advice to farmers on how to keep their soils healthy or improve them, and that the next challenge is to meld NRCS’s knowledge with the private precision agriculture services that farmers are now buying.

The information coming from these precision agriculture services can make conservation more efficient, Weller said.

The consolidation of several conservation programs has made it much easier for farmers and groups to apply for the programs, he added.

“Streamlining will help people in the field reduce confusion,” Weller said.

Several private sector witnesses noted that voluntary programs can be used to resolve environmental problems, but they also talked about the importance of convincing farmers that going to the expense and effort of improving soil improves the bottom line.

“Conservation programs have historically reacted to the resource concerns, instead of being proactive to address the source of the problem. We need to start promoting proactive conservation instead of reactive conservation,” said Jim Harbach, manager of Schrack Farms in Loganton, Pa.

“The dust bowl showed us how we can come together and work on a problem,” said House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., speaking of the history of NRCS since it was established in 1935 as the Soil Conservation Service.