08/18/08 NRCS working on rules to implement farm bill provisions

Farm and Ranch August 18, 2008 Congress didn't leave USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service much time to develop new rules and get the conservation provisions of the new farm bill implemented. During a recent visit to the Northwest, NRCS chief Arlen Lancaster told us the agency is working as quickly as it can to get programs out the door. Lancaster: "The Environmental Quality Incentives Program is our largest program. For the most part Congress made rather modest changes in the program so we are trying to get those tweaks out and get them out the door. But we have different teams working so I wouldn't say that one is more important than the other. Some of our programs like EQIP and WHIP we have a pretty good rule out there and it is a matter of modifying them. Others like the Conservation Stewardship Program are entirely new programs and so we have folks working on that sort of day and night to make sure we can get that out as quickly as possible." Chief Lancaster says as they develop new rules NRCS is also trying to make things easier for producers. Lancaster: "So that there is not all this complication between programs. So part of that challenge is how do we look at these programs across the board and make sure the changes we make in one don't have a negative impact on another program." Changes to conservation programs made in the farm bill will take effect at the start of fiscal year 2009 or when new rules are completed. More from Lancaster on EQIP tomorrow. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.