Partnership will support educational outreach to farmers and ranchers around conservation practices and the sustainable production of food through America’s Conservation Ag Movement, a program of Trust In Food™, a Farm Journal initiative
WASHINGTON, April 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) today announced a cooperative agreement with the Farm Journal Foundation to provide funds to support key tactics of America’s Conservation Ag Movement — a large-scale public-private partnership raising awareness and adoption across agriculture of a new generation of profitable, planet-friendly farming and ranching practices.
NRCS is the leading federal conservation agency driving improvements across agriculture through robust cost-sharing programs and hands-on assistance from upward of 5,000 NRCS field staff across America.
“This agreement further supports our mission of outreach and education to agricultural producers across the nation that drives resiliency in American farming and ranching operations across the nation,” said NRCS Chief Matthew Lohr.
The $2 million NRCS agreement will help collect and distribute state-of-the-art national workbooks and related educational content for improving agriculture’s impact on water, air and soil. Materials will be widely broadcast throughout all sectors of farming and ranching. The agreement also funds local watershed projects in five states, building peer-to-peer sharing networks to improve farmer adoption of profitable conservation practice changes.
Matching funds and additional support for America’s Conservation Ag Movement are being provided by a broad coalition of leading agribusinesses, food companies and non-profit organizations. Organized by Trust In Food, a Farm Journal initiative, the program is designed to more rapidly scale the adoption, documentation and beneficial outcomes of conservation agriculture while sharing opportunities throughout the value chain for more resiliently produced food. The program builds upon and amplifies the work of USDA’s NRCS and many other public and private groups that have worked for decades to improve the ecological impact of agriculture.
In addition to the Farm Journal Foundation and Farm Journal’s Trust In Food, America’s Conservation Ag Movement partners include American Farmland Trust, Corteva Agriscience, Ducks Unlimited, National Corn Growers Association, National Pork Board, The Nature Conservancy, Sanderson Farms, Syngenta and Valent USA. Other partners from across the agri-food value chain and conservation community will be announced shortly.
