Administration allocates $66M for national conservation projects

Jun 13, 2024

USDA and Western governors collaborate on environmental health

By Farms.com

The USDA, under the Administration, is deploying a significant $66 million investment to fortify conservation work across the United States, as announced by Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small during the Western Governors' Association meeting.

This funding is a strategic part of President’s Investing in America agenda and is designed to enhance forest health, improve water quality, and reduce wildfire risks.

This initiative includes a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Western Governors' Association, aiming to unify efforts across state lines and different land ownerships to address pressing environmental challenges effectively.

The investment is distributed through two primary channels - $12 million through the Good Neighbor Authority and $55 million for the Joint Chiefs’ Landscape Restoration Partnership.

The projects funded by this initiative are expected to foster significant improvements in forest management, water conservation, and wildfire prevention.

These efforts will not only safeguard landscapes and ecosystems but also bolster community safety and resilience against natural disasters.

This initiative is part of a broader commitment to ensuring that environmental benefits reach disadvantaged communities, in line with President’s Justice40 Initiative.

The USDA's approach includes inviting proposals for upcoming fiscal year projects, focusing on innovative conservation strategies that include post-fire watershed recovery and the establishment of wildlife corridors.

The announcement also builds upon previous commitments, such as the $18 million recently allocated for Tribal Forest Protection Act projects, reinforcing the administration’s dedication to comprehensive environmental stewardship and cooperative governance.

Through these combined efforts, the USDA aims to enhance the nation's forest and rangeland health while promoting equity in the benefits of federal investments.

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators