Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 897: The Future of the Farm Bill and Private Lands Conservation in America

Transcript

Ep. 897: The Future of the Farm Bill and Private Lands Conservation in America · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods presented by First Light, creating proven
0:08
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
0:13
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
0:19
Speaker 1: Welcome to.
0:20
Speaker 2: The Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show,
0:23
Speaker 2: we are discussing the future of the farm bill and
0:26
Speaker 2: private lands conservation in America. All right, folks, welcome back
0:34
Speaker 2: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
0:36
Speaker 2: First Light and their Camera for Conservation initiative, and we
0:40
Speaker 2: are continuing our Habitat series here as we discuss different issues, ideas, tactics,
0:47
Speaker 2: and strategies for helping you get better habitat on the
0:51
Speaker 2: ground for the wildlife and hunting that you care so
0:55
Speaker 2: much about. And today's conversation is definitely within the parameters
1:00
Speaker 2: of that series. This is maybe as important of a
1:03
Speaker 2: discussion as we'll ever have related to getting strong habitat
1:08
Speaker 2: work done on private lands. And that's because today we're
1:11
Speaker 2: talking about bigger picture programs that impact how this stuff happens,
1:17
Speaker 2: how this stuff gets funded, and how you personally, if
1:19
Speaker 2: you are a land manager or landowner, how you might
1:23
Speaker 2: be able to get assistance in improving habitat or actually
1:28
Speaker 2: money and funding towards putting in this kind of work
1:32
Speaker 2: and doing these kinds of projects on your land. And
1:35
Speaker 2: then if you're not a landowner, we're going to discuss
1:38
Speaker 2: about some things that will actually impact the landscape across
1:42
Speaker 2: the country that you very well might be hunting when
1:45
Speaker 2: you're trying to get hunting permission or going through walking
1:48
Speaker 2: access or whatever it might be. The content, the policies,
1:54
Speaker 2: the programs that we're going to talk about today impact
1:59
Speaker 2: all of that. And what we're talking about is the
2:02
Speaker 2: Farm Bill, the twenty well this would be the twenty
2:05
Speaker 2: twenty three Farm Bill that we're still trying to get
2:07
Speaker 2: approved now in twenty twenty five. We're talking today about
2:10
Speaker 2: the Farm Bill because the Farm Bill, even though it
2:13
Speaker 2: sounds like something just related to the agricultural community, is
2:17
Speaker 2: actually the largest piece of conservation legislation impacting private lands,
2:23
Speaker 2: habitat and conservation work across the entire United States. And
2:27
Speaker 2: we've done a handful of episodes over the last ten
2:30
Speaker 2: plus years about this, and we continue to talk about
2:33
Speaker 2: it because it is just that important. And two years
2:36
Speaker 2: ago we had our last chat on this one and
2:40
Speaker 2: we were joined by two folks from the Theodore Roosevelt
2:43
Speaker 2: Conservation Partnership. One of these people was Aaron Field. He
2:47
Speaker 2: is their director of Private Lands Conservation, and he is
2:51
Speaker 2: back with me today to discuss why we are having
2:54
Speaker 2: to have this same conversation just two years after the
2:57
Speaker 2: first one, because, guess what, that farm bill that we
3:00
Speaker 2: hoped to have passed with strong funding for conservation programs
3:04
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty three, it did not happen. It
3:07
Speaker 2: didn't happen in twenty twenty four, and so now here
3:10
Speaker 2: we are again in twenty twenty five, trying to make
3:13
Speaker 2: sure that a farm bill is passed that has adequate
3:16
Speaker 2: funding to make sure that programs such as CRP continue
3:21
Speaker 2: to be funded and able to be accessed by folks
3:24
Speaker 2: like you or the farmer that you hunt on his ground,
3:28
Speaker 2: or the walk in access programs being available that you
3:31
Speaker 2: benefit from in Kansas or Minnesota or Michigan or Montana.
3:35
Speaker 2: The farm bill impacts all that stuff. So whether you
3:39
Speaker 2: own and manage land and want to make sure you
3:41
Speaker 2: can get involved in these programs and have help getting
3:44
Speaker 2: it done, or if you are a private land door
3:47
Speaker 2: knock and hunter, or you want to get on that
3:50
Speaker 2: access program land. The farm Bill will help, but we
3:53
Speaker 2: need to make sure that something gets passed. We need
3:56
Speaker 2: to make sure that the right bill gets passed, and
3:59
Speaker 2: that is what Aaron and I discussed today. We discuss
4:03
Speaker 2: in much greater detail why this piece of legislation, why
4:07
Speaker 2: the Farm Bill is relevant to us as hunters, and
4:10
Speaker 2: then we discuss what those most important programs are within it,
4:15
Speaker 2: including CRP, which a lot of us have heard about
4:17
Speaker 2: but maybe don't understand in detail, and the voluntary the
4:21
Speaker 2: VPA hip, which is like a habitat access program that
4:25
Speaker 2: funds things like Kansas's walking areas and others. So we're
4:29
Speaker 2: going to talk about all that, and then we're going
4:31
Speaker 2: to discuss why we're in the situation now where we
4:34
Speaker 2: still don't have a new farm bill approved in past,
4:36
Speaker 2: and then what we as individuals can do, What can
4:39
Speaker 2: we kind of difference can we make to make sure
4:41
Speaker 2: this thing finally happens to make sure that we don't
4:43
Speaker 2: lose more CRP land out there, to make sure that
4:46
Speaker 2: we do have the services and the quality habitat out
4:50
Speaker 2: there that we need to have healthy deer and pheasant
4:53
Speaker 2: and grouse and whatever other wildlife we care about it's
4:57
Speaker 2: all dependent on this kind of habitat and the kind
5:00
Speaker 2: projects that the farm bill impacts. So we discuss all
5:03
Speaker 2: that and then finally to wrap it all up, we
5:05
Speaker 2: also talk a little bit about the application of this.
5:08
Speaker 2: So if you are a land owner or manager and
5:10
Speaker 2: you want to get involved and get CRP on your land,
5:14
Speaker 2: or maybe get involved with something called equip where you
5:17
Speaker 2: can be you know, advised on how to make a
5:20
Speaker 2: habitat improvement on your land, and then also have cost share,
5:24
Speaker 2: so where the government will pay for a portion of
5:27
Speaker 2: your seed or a portion of your herbis side, or
5:29
Speaker 2: a portion of the work that needs to get done.
5:31
Speaker 2: They'll help with that payment. If you want to get
5:34
Speaker 2: involved in anything like that so that you can improve
5:36
Speaker 2: your habitat for deer and other wildlife and do it
5:39
Speaker 2: more economically or with some added expertise, Aaron's going to
5:43
Speaker 2: talk about how to get that done, how to get
5:45
Speaker 2: involved with these programs, what all that entails. So that's
5:49
Speaker 2: the plan for today. It is I was going to
5:52
Speaker 2: say action packed. I suppose any kind of conversation about
5:55
Speaker 2: policy and legislation probably doesn't sound action packed, but I'm
5:59
Speaker 2: telling you this stuff really matters. Across Whitetail Country, and
6:05
Speaker 2: if you're a hunter anywhere in the country, there's without
6:08
Speaker 2: a doubt open lands that are owned by private landowners
6:12
Speaker 2: but are benefiting the public. Whether you hunt by permission
6:15
Speaker 2: or on walk and access or public land next door,
6:18
Speaker 2: or just on your very own land, this stuff is
6:20
Speaker 2: impacting you no matter where you are. It's really important.
6:23
Speaker 2: So I really appreciate you listening to this one. I
6:27
Speaker 2: appreciate you getting in touch with your lawmakers about this stuff.
6:30
Speaker 2: Or if you are someone who owns land and wants
6:33
Speaker 2: to do good work on your ground, I appreciate that
6:35
Speaker 2: work too. So, without any further ado, here's my chat
6:38
Speaker 2: with Aaron Field about the future of the farm Bill
6:42
Speaker 2: and private lands conservation in America. All right with me
6:51
Speaker 2: now once again, several years later, is Aaron Field?
6:57
Speaker 3: Hi, doing aerin, Doing pretty well? Mark? How about yourself today?
7:00
Speaker 2: I'm good, I'm good. I appreciate you taking the time
7:03
Speaker 2: to join me. I'm glad that we have well, I
7:07
Speaker 2: guess I'm happy we get to chat again. I'm not
7:10
Speaker 2: so glad that we're talking about something that we talked
7:13
Speaker 2: about two years ago and which has not seen the
7:16
Speaker 2: kind of movement we were hoping we would see in
7:19
Speaker 2: this twenty four month period since our last chat. But yeah,
7:23
Speaker 2: I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. We're talking farm
7:25
Speaker 2: bill today, and for someone who maybe clicked on this
7:31
Speaker 2: one to give it a listen out of curiosity but
7:34
Speaker 2: does not yet really fully understand what the farm bill is,
7:37
Speaker 2: can you give me your elevator pitch on what the
7:41
Speaker 2: farm bill is in relation to conservation and hunters and
7:46
Speaker 2: anglers and why this is relevant to someone that maybe
7:50
Speaker 2: is listening to this podcast that's a diehard deer hunter
7:53
Speaker 2: loves getting outside, maybe Owens land or Manages land.
7:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, probably the simplest way to describe the
7:59
Speaker 4: farm bill to somebody who is mostly interested in the
8:03
Speaker 4: conservation side of things, or the hunting and fishing.
8:05
Speaker 3: Side of things.
8:06
Speaker 4: This is the biggest investment that we as a nation
8:09
Speaker 4: make in conservation, point blank. So our public lands are
8:12
Speaker 4: obviously super important both for you know, wildlife recreation and a.
8:18
Speaker 3: Whole host to other uses.
8:20
Speaker 4: But still more than sixty percent of the land area
8:23
Speaker 4: in this country is privately owned, and if we're ignoring
8:26
Speaker 4: that from a wildlife habitat and access perspective, we're really
8:30
Speaker 4: missing the boat. That's especially true for those of us,
8:33
Speaker 4: you know, in the eastern half of the United States,
8:35
Speaker 4: where public lands are not as accessible, but it's also
8:39
Speaker 4: true as you go further west, you know some of
8:42
Speaker 4: the biggest public land states we've got. If you actually
8:45
Speaker 4: zoom in and look at the role that the private
8:47
Speaker 4: lands in that state are playing in terms of wildlife,
8:51
Speaker 4: in terms of even hunting access or fishing access, you'll
8:55
Speaker 4: find that they have a disproportionate impact. And so the
9:00
Speaker 4: Farm Bill itself is a massive piece of legislation that
9:03
Speaker 4: covers a whole host of issues.
9:06
Speaker 3: But for the.
9:06
Speaker 4: Average hunter, just know that this is the biggest investment
9:09
Speaker 4: in conservation that we.
9:10
Speaker 2: Make, so massive investment in private lands conservation that's a
9:17
Speaker 2: part of this big, huge farm bill. Stuff like the
9:21
Speaker 2: CRP program, which is probably something that stands out to
9:24
Speaker 2: a lot of hunters as something they recognize, equip which
9:29
Speaker 2: is another big one. Can you walk us through a
9:32
Speaker 2: quick high level overview of those two programs and any
9:35
Speaker 2: others that you think are particularly relevant to hunters, because
9:39
Speaker 2: those are kind of like the headliners here as far
9:42
Speaker 2: as programs at the Farm bill funds that actually lead
9:46
Speaker 2: to good stuff happening. On the ground for not just
9:49
Speaker 2: farmers and ranchers, but for deer and pheasants and ducks
9:52
Speaker 2: and all sorts of stuff like that. So, can you
9:53
Speaker 2: walk me through a couple of those headliners that you
9:56
Speaker 2: are actually how the farm bill ends up showing up
9:58
Speaker 2: on the landscape.
10:00
Speaker 4: Sure. Yeah, And something that's important to point out before
10:04
Speaker 4: we start talking through, you know, all these acronyms and
10:06
Speaker 4: various programs that have been created and tweaked and adjusted
10:10
Speaker 4: throughout the years. You know, different countries take different approaches,
10:15
Speaker 4: Different governments take different approaches as to how they how
10:18
Speaker 4: they get good stewardship, good management done, especially on private lands.
10:24
Speaker 4: And I think if you ask ninety nine percent of
10:26
Speaker 4: landowners in this country if they want to do good
10:28
Speaker 4: stewardship on their land, if they're trying to do good
10:30
Speaker 4: stewardship on their land, they're going to.
10:32
Speaker 3: Tell you yes, that's important to me.
10:35
Speaker 4: In the US, the primary mechanism by which we try
10:39
Speaker 4: to get more good conservation work done on private land
10:44
Speaker 4: is through voluntary, incentive based programs. And so this is
10:49
Speaker 4: something that nobody is going out and telling a landowner
10:52
Speaker 4: that they have to participate in. Nobody is going out
10:55
Speaker 4: and saying you know, you must plant a cover crop
10:57
Speaker 4: next year, you must put this into perennial graund. We're
11:01
Speaker 4: working with the landowners, farmers and ranchers, forest landowners, recreational
11:05
Speaker 4: landowners too, who want to do this good work. And
11:11
Speaker 4: I mentioned incentive based, incentive based meaning that rather than
11:16
Speaker 4: having a penalty for you not doing this, we're gonna say, listen,
11:18
Speaker 4: we know it costs money to do good conservation work.
11:21
Speaker 4: You know, I'm managing a small property here myself that
11:24
Speaker 4: I hunt on. There's a lot more I'd like to
11:25
Speaker 4: do if I could afford to do it. And so
11:29
Speaker 4: the programs that that you mentioned, Mark and others are
11:33
Speaker 4: designed to sort of help put.
11:35
Speaker 3: The bill to get that work done.
11:37
Speaker 4: And that's of course beneficial to the landowner who's who's
11:42
Speaker 4: trying to do you know, good conservation work, create wildlife habitat,
11:45
Speaker 4: you know, building long term profitability into their agricultural operation.
11:50
Speaker 4: But it also benefits the rest of us. If we,
11:53
Speaker 4: you know, do something that leads to cleaner water on
11:56
Speaker 4: private land in this country, that's cheaper water treatment plants
11:59
Speaker 4: in our city. If we do something that leads to
12:01
Speaker 4: cleaner airs, that's less respiratory disease. We do something that
12:05
Speaker 4: creates good wildlife habitat. That's obviously more biodiversity and more
12:08
Speaker 4: wildlife on the landscape, which is important for all of us,
12:12
Speaker 4: but especially if.
12:13
Speaker 3: You like to hunt for fish.
12:15
Speaker 4: So you mentioned a couple. One the Conservation Reserve Program
12:18
Speaker 4: the CRP. That's probably the conservation program that mower hunters
12:23
Speaker 4: are aware of than others.
12:25
Speaker 3: And there's a few reasons for that. One it's been around.
12:27
Speaker 4: Longer than some of our other programs, and two it
12:31
Speaker 4: has just a massive outsize impact on creating wildlife habitat.
12:36
Speaker 4: Conservation Reserve Program Essentially, what that does is if you've
12:41
Speaker 4: got crop land land that you've been farming, you know,
12:44
Speaker 4: grown corn and grown weeat on whatever it is, and
12:48
Speaker 4: that land is highly erodable, it's degrading, you're losing top soil,
12:53
Speaker 4: it's not usually not particularly productive. The conservation program provides
12:59
Speaker 4: a financial incentive for you to take that land out
13:02
Speaker 4: of crop production and put it into perennial vegetation. So,
13:06
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of people will think about CRP
13:09
Speaker 4: in South Dakota, for example, and you look at CRP
13:12
Speaker 4: in South Dakota and it'll be a tall grass prairie
13:15
Speaker 4: on what used to be a middling corn crop or
13:18
Speaker 4: a middle and wheat crop. And so from a hunting perspective,
13:24
Speaker 4: one of the limiting factors to wildlife populations across the
13:28
Speaker 4: country and especially in you know, further east throughout the Midwest,
13:34
Speaker 4: it's just a lack of perennial habitat, lack of places
13:37
Speaker 4: for nests, lack of places for deer to bed, lack
13:41
Speaker 4: of places for all sorts of wildlife habitat requirements, and
13:45
Speaker 4: a conservation Reserve program or CRP puts that habitat on
13:49
Speaker 4: the ground to the tune of currently about twenty seven
13:52
Speaker 4: million acres in this country. So it's a huge impact
13:56
Speaker 4: and obviously very important for hunters and anglers.
13:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's one of those, like you said, it's
14:02
Speaker 2: a program that not only has name recognition, but it
14:05
Speaker 2: even has like visual recognition, almost over the top in
14:10
Speaker 2: that I think a lot of hunters now if they
14:12
Speaker 2: see any kind of tall, grassy, kind of brushy field,
14:15
Speaker 2: they just call it CRP. It's become like the generic
14:18
Speaker 2: term for any kind of like early secessional grassland habitat.
14:21
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, yeah, that's CRP. Even though it's not
14:24
Speaker 2: necessarily in a conservation reserve program contract. It's become like
14:29
Speaker 2: the CLINICX of wildlife habitat, which is kind of funny,
14:32
Speaker 2: but yeah, I mean, as a deer hunter, if I
14:35
Speaker 2: see that kind of habitat somewhere, that's an amazing right,
14:39
Speaker 2: bright flashing light like hunt here, there's gonna be wildlife.
14:44
Speaker 2: And what I think is important to note for people
14:48
Speaker 2: listening is that programs like this, in this particular case,
14:52
Speaker 2: the CRP program, it's a really big win for you,
14:56
Speaker 2: whether you own land and want to try to, you know,
14:59
Speaker 2: enroll in this and help get some of your costs
15:02
Speaker 2: taken care of to implement some kind of habitat like
15:04
Speaker 2: this yourself, or if you are a non land owning
15:09
Speaker 2: hunter who is simply trying to get access to habitat
15:12
Speaker 2: and access to places, because this is going to improve
15:15
Speaker 2: habitat and improve hunting opportunities on other people's parcels that
15:19
Speaker 2: either you might be able to hunt around or get
15:21
Speaker 2: access to, or or simply like you said, Aaron, it's
15:24
Speaker 2: going to improve the biodiversity and the health of everything
15:27
Speaker 2: around it when you have this kind of habitat out there.
15:30
Speaker 2: So yeah, CRPS, it just seems like such a huge win.
15:34
Speaker 2: We've lost so much grassland habitat across the country that
15:39
Speaker 2: so many species depend on. Grassland birds are I think,
15:44
Speaker 2: one example of a set of species that have really
15:47
Speaker 2: declined and have been in free fall over the last
15:51
Speaker 2: fifty years because of the lack of that kind of habitat.
15:54
Speaker 2: All sorts of upland birds of course, have been in
15:57
Speaker 2: some places in decline because of loss of that kind
16:00
Speaker 2: of habitat. So I feel like CRP has been one
16:03
Speaker 2: of the big kind of plugs in the leaky boat
16:07
Speaker 2: keeping some of these critters around. If it weren't for that,
16:11
Speaker 2: probably a lot of this stuff would be in even
16:13
Speaker 2: bigger trouble not, wouldn't it.
16:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's absolutely true. And you point out grassland birds,
16:18
Speaker 4: which is a great one to point out is the
16:20
Speaker 4: fastest declaiming declining clade of wildlife on the continent. And honestly,
16:27
Speaker 4: until recently, we could look at things like ducks and say, well,
16:31
Speaker 4: we've been doing pretty good on ducks, but we've come
16:34
Speaker 4: to a point now where where there's even some evidence
16:36
Speaker 4: that ducks are in a little bit of trouble, and
16:39
Speaker 4: so we need to keep keep going with our wetlands work,
16:42
Speaker 4: and the CRP definitely helps with wetlands work as well,
16:45
Speaker 4: but we need to think about those uplands and the
16:47
Speaker 4: around those wetlands too. And he also brought up a
16:50
Speaker 4: really good point. You know, I've been asked before when
16:52
Speaker 4: I talk about these programs, you know, well, that's great.
16:55
Speaker 4: It helps them make better wildlife habitat on their land.
16:59
Speaker 4: How to that benefit me? And I think the access
17:03
Speaker 4: piece is very important, and that's something the TRCP works
17:06
Speaker 4: on a lot, is finding ways to make sure hunters
17:09
Speaker 4: and anglers have access to quality places.
17:11
Speaker 3: To hunt and fish.
17:13
Speaker 4: But just simply the wildlife population benefits of doing good
17:18
Speaker 4: conservation work on private land, even if you know, I
17:21
Speaker 4: might never get to hunt that particular parcel, but I'm
17:25
Speaker 4: sure glad to see good habitat on the land that's
17:28
Speaker 4: in the area, even of where I'm going to be
17:31
Speaker 4: hunting or fishing. It's just so important that we find
17:33
Speaker 4: ways to incentivize that.
17:35
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and there's there's the spillover effect, right. I
17:38
Speaker 2: mean they've found this with with national parks or wildlife
17:41
Speaker 2: reserves or anywhere you can get quality habitat on the
17:44
Speaker 2: ground in a relatively improved or protected landscape. It's going
17:48
Speaker 2: to spill over into the surrounding areas too, and the
17:51
Speaker 2: more of those cores you get, the better it is everywhere.
17:54
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's kind of a no brainer from the
17:57
Speaker 2: perspective of someone who wants to see more wildlife out
18:00
Speaker 2: there and healthier landscapes. But you mentioned access. The Farm
18:05
Speaker 2: bill actually has a hell of an access program within
18:09
Speaker 2: it too. Can you touch on that.
18:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there is only one federal program that is
18:16
Speaker 4: specifically designed to incentivize access for hunting and fishing on
18:20
Speaker 4: private lands, and we're very proud of that program. It's
18:23
Speaker 4: a Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program vpa HIP.
18:28
Speaker 4: Not a great acronym, it's a great program though. The
18:32
Speaker 4: vpa HIP essentially it's a block grant program, and so
18:37
Speaker 4: rather than so, the CRP is designed at a national
18:40
Speaker 4: scale and it's implemented throughout the country. Vpa HIP is
18:46
Speaker 4: a funding source for state level programs, and so, depending
18:50
Speaker 4: on where you are in the country, most states have
18:52
Speaker 4: some version of a private land access program. Here in Minnesota,
18:58
Speaker 4: I go to Milwaukeean area, and that's someplace that I
19:01
Speaker 4: can walk in and hunt anytime during the season for
19:04
Speaker 4: whatever species I'm looking for. But if I go over
19:08
Speaker 4: to North Dakota, it'd be called plots private Land open
19:11
Speaker 4: to Sportsmen, you know, Kansas WHA's. There's a variety of programs,
19:17
Speaker 4: all with different variations on what the specific regulation and
19:23
Speaker 4: what the specific acronym is, but they're all designed to
19:25
Speaker 4: do the same thing, and that's create hunting and fishing
19:28
Speaker 4: access on private lands. So what vpa HIP does is
19:35
Speaker 4: state wildlife agencies design an access program that creates the
19:39
Speaker 4: access that hunters and english and their state need and want.
19:43
Speaker 4: That is targeted to geographies where they really need to
19:47
Speaker 4: create more access, and that works for landowners in the state.
19:52
Speaker 4: Once they have that program created, they can apply for
19:55
Speaker 4: funding through the vpa HIP Voluntary Public Access and Habitat
20:00
Speaker 4: CETIVE program to support that program. And so what we
20:04
Speaker 4: get is this really locally tailored set of access programs
20:09
Speaker 4: for private land with some federal support so that you
20:13
Speaker 4: can either get better habitat enrolled, or you can get
20:15
Speaker 4: more habitat and rolled.
20:17
Speaker 3: Or you can get both.
20:19
Speaker 4: And it's just it's a program that it has support
20:24
Speaker 4: pretty much across the board, bipartisan support in Congress, the
20:30
Speaker 4: states really love it. Tribes are eligible as well, and
20:34
Speaker 4: like I said, it's designed to work with landowners in
20:37
Speaker 4: a way that landowners can support.
20:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the farm bill funds incredible habitat improvements and
20:46
Speaker 2: it helps fund getting folks access to utilize these places
20:51
Speaker 2: in a hunting or fishing or any kind of way. Right.
20:56
Speaker 2: And then there's also EQUIP which is another program within
20:58
Speaker 2: the bill that I think does a lot of the former,
21:00
Speaker 2: which is the improvement side of things. Can you touch
21:02
Speaker 2: on that a little bit as well.
21:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, So the Environmental Quality Insteatives program super popular program
21:08
Speaker 4: with landowners. It's one of our most flexible conservation programs.
21:15
Speaker 4: And so what will happen And remind me to talk
21:18
Speaker 4: a little bit about sort of the conservation planning and
21:21
Speaker 4: technical assistance side of this too, But what will happen
21:24
Speaker 4: as a landowner. I'll give you an example. A friend
21:26
Speaker 4: of mine, they've got cattle and crop operation here in
21:30
Speaker 4: western Minnesota. He was talking to me, he said, Man,
21:34
Speaker 4: I'd really like to do some more cover crops. One
21:38
Speaker 4: to prevent soil erosion and improve soil health. And two
21:40
Speaker 4: because hey, that's going to give us a little more
21:43
Speaker 4: forage for our cattle in the fall and potentially in
21:46
Speaker 4: the spring. That's going to take some pressure off our pastures.
21:50
Speaker 4: We're going to have better habitat out there.
21:51
Speaker 3: It's it's just.
21:52
Speaker 4: A really good idea to do. It's something that we'd
21:56
Speaker 4: like to implement here on our farm. That's that's pretty expensive.
22:01
Speaker 4: You know, if you've ever bought seed, either whether it's
22:03
Speaker 4: for a food plot or a habitat project, or if
22:06
Speaker 4: you're a farmer yourself, seats aren't cheap. And so what
22:11
Speaker 4: this friend of mine did is they went down to
22:13
Speaker 4: their local n RCS Natural Resources Conservation Service office and
22:19
Speaker 4: they put in an application for EQUIP and assuming that
22:23
Speaker 4: application is funded, which is a pretty big question mark,
22:25
Speaker 4: actually they'll essentially get about half their seat costs paid
22:31
Speaker 4: for to do those cover crops. And again that's recognizing
22:34
Speaker 4: that this individual landowner's conservation action benefits the rest of
22:40
Speaker 4: us to such a degree that it's worth us investing in.
22:44
Speaker 4: But besides cover crop, equip can support all sorts of
22:48
Speaker 4: things that can support nutrient management plans. So we put
22:51
Speaker 4: a little less fertilizer into streams, which is obviously important
22:54
Speaker 4: from a fisheries perspective. It can support establishing conservation cover.
23:00
Speaker 4: So if you've got one example would be if you've
23:03
Speaker 4: got an irrigated field, especially in the sort of high
23:07
Speaker 4: planes area where it's where it's real dry, those pivot
23:11
Speaker 4: corners where the irrigation doesn't reach the corner of the field,
23:15
Speaker 4: oftentimes they're not not very productive at all. So EQUIP
23:18
Speaker 4: could fund planting that to habitat. And actually, if you
23:21
Speaker 4: go down to some of those states, they've created access
23:24
Speaker 4: programs so you can hunt those pivot corners and you're
23:27
Speaker 4: hunting a relatively small chunk, but man, there can be
23:29
Speaker 4: a lot of birds in that chunk. And just you
23:33
Speaker 4: know down the list there's livestock practices. You know, EQUIP
23:36
Speaker 4: can be used to support wildlife friendly fencing, so we're
23:41
Speaker 4: hanging up fewer deer, elk, pronghorn that are trying to
23:45
Speaker 4: move across a landscape. One of the coolest ways that
23:48
Speaker 4: we use EQUIP along with some of our other programs,
23:51
Speaker 4: is through through initiative called Working Lands for Wildlife. And
23:56
Speaker 4: what that does is it takes a landscape level approach
24:00
Speaker 4: to okay, what are the conservation needs in say the
24:03
Speaker 4: sagebrush step, and then it targets those EQUIP practices to
24:07
Speaker 4: where they're going to make the most difference for wildlife.
24:10
Speaker 3: So let's put the let's.
24:12
Speaker 4: Make sure we have wildlife friendly fence along that migration
24:15
Speaker 4: corridor that mule are using to come to winter range,
24:18
Speaker 4: things like that. So again, really flexible program usually relatively
24:24
Speaker 4: short term contracts for landowners as compared to the CRP
24:29
Speaker 4: is a ten or a fifteen year contract, which works
24:32
Speaker 4: great for some folks. It gives you that certainty in planning.
24:37
Speaker 4: But for others, you know, they're a lot more comfortable
24:39
Speaker 4: doing something on the three year timescale, and so EQUIP
24:43
Speaker 4: can deliver that for folks.
24:56
Speaker 2: So the EQUIP program, this CRP program, VPA hip, and
25:03
Speaker 2: I know there's there's a number of other programs too,
25:05
Speaker 2: some ease mints and things like that. All of this,
25:09
Speaker 2: as you mentioned, adds up to the largest investment in
25:13
Speaker 2: private lands conservation across the country. Year after a year
25:17
Speaker 2: after a year, it's a big, huge, important thing that's
25:20
Speaker 2: protected and conserved and improved a lot of land across
25:24
Speaker 2: the United States that otherwise would probably be in much
25:27
Speaker 2: much worse health.
25:28
Speaker 3: Right now.
25:30
Speaker 2: We talked about this in twenty twenty three, because every
25:33
Speaker 2: I think it's every five years right, a new farm
25:35
Speaker 2: bill is supposed to be passed. We're having this very
25:39
Speaker 2: similar conversation in twenty twenty three about, hey, we got
25:41
Speaker 2: to get the next one out, We've got to move
25:43
Speaker 2: it forward. Here's what we're hoping gets done. But here
25:48
Speaker 2: we are now in twenty twenty five and we still
25:51
Speaker 2: don't have a new farm bill. What's going on, Aaron?
25:54
Speaker 2: Why are we in this position? And what does it
25:56
Speaker 2: mean for these programs that we're talking about? You know,
25:59
Speaker 2: is is stuff still getting done? Are people still being
26:02
Speaker 2: incentivized to take this kind of action nowt or we
26:04
Speaker 2: can start losing this habitat or losing these opportunities.
26:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.
26:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is pretty frustrating to be having a very
26:11
Speaker 4: similar conversation that we had a couple of years ago
26:14
Speaker 4: about this bill, and it really underscores the importance of
26:19
Speaker 4: hunters and anglers getting involved in this process, being informed on,
26:25
Speaker 4: you know, what these programs are, what they're actually accomplishing,
26:29
Speaker 4: and then making sure that their elected officials know that
26:31
Speaker 4: they're important to them. You know, farm bill is a
26:35
Speaker 4: big piece of legislation and includes other things besides conservation.
26:38
Speaker 4: It includes you know, prop insurance and commodity support and
26:42
Speaker 4: basically the farm safety net to keep people farming over
26:45
Speaker 4: a long.
26:46
Speaker 3: Period of time.
26:46
Speaker 4: So obviously the a community is highly invested in getting
26:50
Speaker 4: farm bills done, but that community is smaller than it
26:55
Speaker 4: used to be. Farmers used to make up something like
27:00
Speaker 4: twenty five percent of the population when we passed the
27:02
Speaker 4: first farm bill about ninety years ago, the first thing
27:04
Speaker 4: we called a farm bill. That's less than one percent
27:06
Speaker 4: of the population now. And although that's I mean, it's
27:10
Speaker 4: a super important demographic, it's a super important, you know,
27:14
Speaker 4: career path, it's a major economic driver in rural America.
27:19
Speaker 4: It's a relatively small voting block. At the same time,
27:23
Speaker 4: and so it can't just be the ad groups that
27:28
Speaker 4: are out there saying, hey, we need to get a
27:29
Speaker 4: farm bill done. We need the conservation community involved in this.
27:33
Speaker 4: We need hunters and anglers speaking up, being informed on
27:37
Speaker 4: these programs and talking about their importance. So, Mark, you
27:41
Speaker 4: mentioned we passed farm bills about every five years. They
27:44
Speaker 4: tend to be written as a five year bill, meaning
27:47
Speaker 4: the provisions within the bill expire after five years. So
27:52
Speaker 4: we've been doing that since we had a really conservation
27:57
Speaker 4: focused bill that started in nineteen eighty five, but the
28:01
Speaker 4: last time we passed a farm bill in the US
28:03
Speaker 4: was in twenty eighteen, which means we're now in the
28:05
Speaker 4: longest stretch without a new farm bill in the modern year.
28:11
Speaker 4: There's a couple of practical issues with that. The biggest
28:14
Speaker 4: one that I'll point out is we haven't updated policy
28:20
Speaker 4: around our farm programs in this country since twenty eighteen,
28:23
Speaker 4: and a lot of that would have been written in
28:24
Speaker 4: twenty seventeen, so we're dealing with, you know, seven eight
28:28
Speaker 4: nine year old ideas on how we should manage these programs.
28:33
Speaker 4: The other one is when a farm bill does expire, yes,
28:36
Speaker 4: you're you're absolutely right, these programs end, so we would
28:40
Speaker 4: not be enrolling in the conservation reserve program, we would
28:42
Speaker 4: not be signing equipped contracts to get people to get
28:45
Speaker 4: work done. That does get mitivate gated and has been
28:49
Speaker 4: mitigated so far by passing what we call farm bill extensions.
28:54
Speaker 4: We passed a one year farm bill extension shortly after
28:57
Speaker 4: the bill expired in twenty twenty three, past another one
29:01
Speaker 4: year extension after that extension expired, so we're about halfway
29:05
Speaker 4: through the second one year extension of the twenty eighteen
29:08
Speaker 4: farm bill.
29:09
Speaker 3: Right now.
29:09
Speaker 4: What that means is the programs are still going forward.
29:13
Speaker 4: We're still doing the good conservation work. We just haven't
29:17
Speaker 4: had an opportunity to update those programs in the interim.
29:22
Speaker 4: And there's been a few barriers to that. I mean,
29:25
Speaker 4: if you've been paying attention to Congress at all over
29:28
Speaker 4: the last decade or so, you've probably seen that partisanship
29:32
Speaker 4: isn't getting any smaller, it's not becoming less of an issue.
29:37
Speaker 4: And traditionally, and I think still today, the Agriculture committees
29:41
Speaker 4: in Congress and those are.
29:42
Speaker 3: That's the group that writes.
29:44
Speaker 4: And passes a farm bill, has been the most bipartisan
29:49
Speaker 4: committee on Capitol Hill. It's long been recognized that agg
29:55
Speaker 4: policy will not move as a partisan bill end up
30:00
Speaker 4: getting some really interesting sort of geographical alliances built across
30:05
Speaker 4: party lines when you start talking about a farm bill,
30:10
Speaker 4: and so traditionally that has helped farm bills move even
30:13
Speaker 4: when other things couldn't. But like I said, it hasn't
30:17
Speaker 4: gotten any easier to move things through Congress in recent years,
30:20
Speaker 4: and the farm bill has not been an exception to that.
30:24
Speaker 4: Another big factor was, you know, last year was a
30:28
Speaker 4: presidential election year. It's really difficult to encourage folks to
30:33
Speaker 4: go get bipartisan wins during a presidential election year, so
30:37
Speaker 4: I think that was one of our big hang ups.
30:40
Speaker 4: I still retain a fair bit of optimism going into
30:43
Speaker 4: this Congress, which started in January of this year, for
30:49
Speaker 4: a few reasons. One, I think we've got some fantastic
30:52
Speaker 4: leadership on the egg committees, folks who are used to
30:55
Speaker 4: doing bipartisan work from both parties. We had a farm
31:03
Speaker 4: bill introduced in the House at the end of last
31:05
Speaker 4: Congress that passed out of committee, which meant it had
31:08
Speaker 4: some traction and has some potential to move forward. And
31:12
Speaker 4: so we're not starting from scratch, which is which is
31:15
Speaker 4: another reason for optimism. But early this year we've got
31:21
Speaker 4: you know, Republicans in control of both chambers. Now we've
31:24
Speaker 4: got a Republican in the White House, and so the
31:26
Speaker 4: Republican Party is working on making sure they get their
31:28
Speaker 4: priorities through, which are obviously broader than just egg policy.
31:34
Speaker 4: And so I think we've got to get through things
31:37
Speaker 4: like a reconciliation package, which we probably don't need to
31:40
Speaker 4: get into the weeds done here, Mark, But towards the
31:44
Speaker 4: later this summer into the fall, I'm hopeful that we'll
31:47
Speaker 4: start to really see some movement towards getting a farm
31:50
Speaker 4: built done that we haven't really seen recently.
31:54
Speaker 2: And how long does that process take? So once they
31:57
Speaker 2: push this other stuff aside and they're able to focus
32:00
Speaker 2: the farm bill and hypothetically we have the people in
32:04
Speaker 2: place to move something forward finally, hopefully, is that a
32:08
Speaker 2: six month process? Is that a year and a half process?
32:12
Speaker 2: You know, when will people actually be voting to make
32:15
Speaker 2: this thing reality and we'll be able to get on
32:17
Speaker 2: the horn and holler at our elected officials to tell
32:21
Speaker 2: them vote this thing through.
32:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean you can start doing that now.
32:27
Speaker 4: And there's a few reasons for that. One because it's
32:31
Speaker 4: always helpful, and we've got tools for that if you're
32:34
Speaker 4: interested in getting involved, and we could talk more about
32:37
Speaker 4: that too, Mark at TRCP dot org. We've got some
32:40
Speaker 4: action alerts running to help folks send that message. Another
32:45
Speaker 4: reason that folks might be thinking about getting involved right
32:48
Speaker 4: now is members of Congress will introduce what we call
32:53
Speaker 4: marker bills, and these are bills that are intended to
32:58
Speaker 4: influence the farm bill and it moves. And so there's
33:02
Speaker 4: just one example of program that we already talked about
33:04
Speaker 4: the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat and Centive program. There
33:07
Speaker 4: is a bipartisan bi camera bill in Congress introduced in
33:12
Speaker 4: Congress right now called the Voluntary Public Access Improvement Act,
33:16
Speaker 4: And what that bill would do is it reauthorizes the
33:18
Speaker 4: program which is currently expired, and it would increase the
33:24
Speaker 4: funding from fifty million dollars over the life of a
33:26
Speaker 4: farm bill to one hundred and fifty million dollars over
33:28
Speaker 4: the life of farm bill, so three times the access.
33:33
Speaker 4: And so we've got an action alert running right now
33:35
Speaker 4: on our website where folks can click on that and
33:39
Speaker 4: it's actually kind of neat technology I'm excited about. If
33:43
Speaker 4: you're member of Congress or your senator has already co
33:48
Speaker 4: sponsored that bill, it'll send them a thank you for
33:51
Speaker 4: co sponsoring that bill. And if your member of Congress
33:54
Speaker 4: has not, it'll send them an ask saying, hey, as
33:59
Speaker 4: a constituent, appreciate if you would if you would co
34:02
Speaker 4: sponsor this bill so folks can get involved right now.
34:06
Speaker 4: And if if you're not ready to take that step
34:08
Speaker 4: of making an ask, absolutely, you know, just just making
34:12
Speaker 4: sure that you're well.
34:12
Speaker 3: Informed is super important.
34:15
Speaker 4: But timing wise, you know what what folks will tell
34:17
Speaker 4: you is people start writing the next farm bill as
34:19
Speaker 4: soon as the ink is dry on the next one.
34:21
Speaker 4: So the Egg Committee members will be out as soon
34:25
Speaker 4: as the farm bill passes. They're out listening to their constituents,
34:29
Speaker 4: meeting with stakeholder groups, and hearing what changes.
34:32
Speaker 3: Might need to happen.
34:32
Speaker 4: But where we're sitting now, I mentioned Chairman G. T.
34:37
Speaker 4: Thompson has a bill that was introduced in the House
34:40
Speaker 4: last session, made it through committee, and so I imagine he
34:45
Speaker 4: is working with his Democratic counterparts to make tweaks to
34:49
Speaker 4: that bill to build bipartisan support moving forward. But that
34:54
Speaker 4: bill is largely written at this point, and so theoretically
34:59
Speaker 4: they could move pretty qui in the House, where you know,
35:01
Speaker 4: you get a bill introduced and marked up within a
35:03
Speaker 4: few weeks, and you know, whenever there was four time
35:09
Speaker 4: for a vote, it could move fairly quickly. I think
35:12
Speaker 4: on the Senate side, we've got a new ranking member,
35:17
Speaker 4: which would be the top ranking Democrat on the committee
35:19
Speaker 4: in Senator Amy Klobashar Minnesota, and so I think there's
35:25
Speaker 4: some work going on on the Senate side to make
35:28
Speaker 4: sure that Chairman Bozeman and ranking Member Cloba shar are
35:33
Speaker 4: you know, aligned on what that farm bill needs to
35:35
Speaker 4: look like? And so again, I think they can move
35:39
Speaker 4: relatively quickly. We've been working on bill techs for years.
35:41
Speaker 4: Committee staff have been It's amazing how much work that
35:45
Speaker 4: those folks put into these pieces of legislation. But all
35:51
Speaker 4: that to say, there are still some pretty big barriers
35:54
Speaker 4: to something happening this year. Namely, Congress is pretty distracted
35:59
Speaker 4: right now with things like reconciliation and debt ceiling and
36:03
Speaker 4: budget resolutions, the appropriations process, And so if I was
36:09
Speaker 4: a betting man and I quit being a betting man
36:13
Speaker 4: because of spending time working on farm bills, I think
36:17
Speaker 4: it's going to be pretty challenging to get something done
36:18
Speaker 4: this fault.
36:19
Speaker 3: But I think early next year they really could, We
36:22
Speaker 3: really could see some motion.
36:24
Speaker 2: You've talked about appropriations and reconciliation and all this budget stuff,
36:28
Speaker 2: and you know, as you said, there's there's a lot
36:31
Speaker 2: going on right now. There's a lot of momentum around
36:34
Speaker 2: cost cutting, pulling, funding, freezing, funding, et cetera, across all
36:39
Speaker 2: sorts of agencies and all sorts of programs. How might
36:44
Speaker 2: that impact the farm bill? How you know, is a
36:50
Speaker 2: chainsaw going to be taken to this thing in one
36:54
Speaker 2: form or another. Is that a possible thing we need
36:57
Speaker 2: to be concerned about.
36:59
Speaker 3: I don't think that that's especially likely.
37:01
Speaker 4: And the reason I say that is because of the strong,
37:05
Speaker 4: strong bipartisan support that these programs and provisions within the
37:09
Speaker 4: Farm Bill have. I think that's true, especially on the
37:15
Speaker 4: A Committee, the people who spend a lot of time
37:17
Speaker 4: thinking about this, but I think it's true across Congress
37:20
Speaker 4: as well.
37:21
Speaker 3: If you look.
37:22
Speaker 4: At, you know, the number of votes that farm bills
37:26
Speaker 4: have generated in the past, you'll see that it's one
37:29
Speaker 4: of the most bipartisan things that Congress does. And so
37:33
Speaker 4: I'm I'm optimistic that that a farm bill will move
37:36
Speaker 4: that you know, all of our stakeholder groups can can
37:40
Speaker 4: be proud of and happy with. As far as you know,
37:45
Speaker 4: other other programs, I can really only speak to USDA,
37:48
Speaker 4: especially at the NRCS. There's a lot going on across
37:50
Speaker 4: the federal government. Those are really outside my area expertise.
37:55
Speaker 4: I should also note it's early April today, and you know,
37:59
Speaker 4: I shut my email offer this podcast.
38:01
Speaker 3: Who knows what happens during this hour?
38:04
Speaker 4: But short answer is it's really too early to say,
38:06
Speaker 4: I know that's not particularly satisfying, but we're a couple months,
38:10
Speaker 4: a few months into a new presidential administration. In any turnover,
38:15
Speaker 4: any change in administration, especially from one party to the other,
38:20
Speaker 4: there's going to be a lot of changes implemented and
38:22
Speaker 4: that can feel a lot like whiplash. And I think
38:24
Speaker 4: that's kind of where most of us are sitting right now.
38:29
Speaker 3: Our job at.
38:29
Speaker 4: TRCP is not really to shout from the rooftops. Necessarily.
38:36
Speaker 4: We're trying to work with those decision makers and work
38:38
Speaker 4: with our partners so that we have solutions rather than
38:42
Speaker 4: you know, just necessarily pointing out problems USDA. If you
38:49
Speaker 4: pay attention to sort of the leadership that's being appointed
38:53
Speaker 4: at USTA, that's that's really happening right now. And so
38:57
Speaker 4: you've got folks who are just showing up to their
38:59
Speaker 4: desk and getting in position and starting to implement some
39:04
Speaker 4: of these programs you mentioned a pause. We saw initially
39:08
Speaker 4: a pause on a lot of programs as this administration
39:10
Speaker 4: started getting staff in place, and that was really disconcerting
39:13
Speaker 4: to a lot of people, especially if you were a
39:16
Speaker 4: farmer or rancher. You know, in some cases folks had
39:20
Speaker 4: you know, done work or purchased materials, and they were
39:24
Speaker 4: waiting to be reimbursed for that while they were trying
39:27
Speaker 4: to purchase their inputs for an upcoming crop year.
39:30
Speaker 3: That was really.
39:31
Speaker 4: Stressful for a lot of folks. But as it sits
39:34
Speaker 4: today again, as we're talking right now, it appears that
39:39
Speaker 4: much of that funding is beginning to move, especially the
39:41
Speaker 4: stuff that's going directly to farmers and ranchers, and really
39:46
Speaker 4: happy to see that. It's a really important step.
39:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.
39:54
Speaker 4: The other piece, mark is the staffing side of things.
39:59
Speaker 4: If uh, what we all want, at least in the
40:02
Speaker 4: conservation community is if if we've got a landowner who
40:05
Speaker 4: wants to do good conservation work, we want them to
40:08
Speaker 4: be able to talk to a human being, get their
40:10
Speaker 4: questions answered, get their you know, resource concerns identified, and
40:15
Speaker 4: we want a conservation plan made and we want it
40:17
Speaker 4: to be simple and easy and quick for that landowner
40:19
Speaker 4: who's trying to to to you know, do good work
40:22
Speaker 4: for the rest of us. For years now, and this
40:26
Speaker 4: this is not new. For years, we've been asking the
40:28
Speaker 4: USDA staff, especially at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, to.
40:34
Speaker 3: Do more with less.
40:36
Speaker 4: We've had a lot of retirement in that agency, some
40:40
Speaker 4: of that was related to COVID. Some of that was
40:44
Speaker 4: just general attrition as folks aged out of the workforce.
40:49
Speaker 4: But we've lost a lot of expertise, and we've lost
40:50
Speaker 4: a lot of institutional knowledge, and a lot of cases
40:54
Speaker 4: they just those positions haven't been filled and so that
41:00
Speaker 4: would be amplified if we start to see, you know,
41:03
Speaker 4: further cuts among those staff. So anyway, we just we
41:12
Speaker 4: need to work on finding solutions and making sure that
41:14
Speaker 4: we can actually get this conservation on the ground. And
41:18
Speaker 4: there's a few different ways that this is done too.
41:20
Speaker 4: I didn't talk about the partnership model, and so a
41:25
Speaker 4: lot of a lot of the conservation planning and program
41:29
Speaker 4: enrollment that's done for these programs is done through conservation
41:35
Speaker 4: nonprofit organizations and there isn't really a much more efficient
41:39
Speaker 4: model than USDA partnering with groups like that to get
41:44
Speaker 4: this work done.
41:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of conservation funding and work getting done, you know,
41:51
Speaker 2: last time we chatted two years ago, one of the
41:54
Speaker 2: most important things that you guys had talked about was
41:57
Speaker 2: the fact that there had been this twenty dollars excuse me,
42:00
Speaker 2: twenty billion dollar addition to the conservation title of the
42:06
Speaker 2: Farm Bill that came from the IRA Funds Inflation Reduction
42:10
Speaker 2: Act essentially directed an additional twenty billion dollars in funding
42:17
Speaker 2: towards these programs. And one of the big asks that
42:20
Speaker 2: you guys had mentioned that was being prioritized within future
42:24
Speaker 2: negotiations is trying to make sure that funding is permanent
42:27
Speaker 2: and that that is included in future iterations of the
42:30
Speaker 2: Farm bill. Where do we stand with that with the
42:33
Speaker 2: new Farm Bill that they're discussing right now, Does it
42:36
Speaker 2: look like that's going to happen. Is this whole funding
42:38
Speaker 2: challenge that we've been talking about, is that going to
42:41
Speaker 2: possibly lead to that disappearing or no? Any idea?
42:45
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, one of the biggest problems with these programs
42:49
Speaker 4: is simply the lack of funding that's allocated toward them.
42:53
Speaker 4: And so right now, even with an additional influx of
42:58
Speaker 4: funding through you mentioned through the Reduction Act, depending on
43:02
Speaker 4: what program you're talking about, we fund somewhere between fifteen
43:07
Speaker 4: and thirty five percent of qualified applicants who come in.
43:12
Speaker 4: So if I'm a landowner, I have a good idea
43:15
Speaker 4: that's going to be beneficial for all of us, I
43:17
Speaker 4: still only have about a twenty five percent chance that
43:20
Speaker 4: it's going to get funded. That's a real problem. There's
43:25
Speaker 4: a lot of good conservation work that is not getting
43:28
Speaker 4: done right now because of that. And so there is
43:32
Speaker 4: an opportunity, through some you know, through some economics and
43:38
Speaker 4: budgetary maneuvers that I don't fully understand, Mark, there is
43:43
Speaker 4: an opportunity that we can make those funds permanent. And
43:46
Speaker 4: what that would be is about a twenty five percent
43:48
Speaker 4: increase to the conservation baseline. And so it would it
43:52
Speaker 4: would absolutely not fully address the shortcoming that these programs
43:57
Speaker 4: have in terms of funding.
43:58
Speaker 3: But it would make a big dent.
44:00
Speaker 4: It would be incredibly beneficial from a habitat perspective. Where
44:05
Speaker 4: we sit now is I think actually better than where
44:09
Speaker 4: we were a couple of years ago in that we
44:12
Speaker 4: have broad by bipartisan support among a committee leadership for
44:16
Speaker 4: doing that. I met the leaders of both parties have
44:22
Speaker 4: have publicly been talking about this, that this is a
44:25
Speaker 4: good thing that we can do that is good for
44:29
Speaker 4: farmers and ranchers and it's good for conservation and UH.
44:34
Speaker 4: In fact, one of the biggest.
44:35
Speaker 3: Champions of doing that.
44:38
Speaker 4: Through UH through an end of year package at the
44:40
Speaker 4: end of the year last year was was chairman Thompson
44:42
Speaker 4: at the House EG Committee Republican out of Pennsylvania.
44:46
Speaker 3: And so we're in a good.
44:48
Speaker 4: Position in that the folks who have the most ability
44:53
Speaker 4: to make those decisions understand and appreciate that it's a
44:57
Speaker 4: good idea and have been pushing for it. The channel
45:00
Speaker 4: is that needs to happen as part of another piece
45:04
Speaker 4: of legislation. The one that makes the most sense, of course,
45:06
Speaker 4: is passing a farm bill, and we already talked a
45:08
Speaker 4: little bit about the challenges to getting that done this year,
45:12
Speaker 4: but there may be some other avenues that Congress could
45:15
Speaker 4: explore to get that done.
45:18
Speaker 2: So continuing one step further down and kind of looking
45:21
Speaker 2: towards the future of the farm bill in these programs,
45:24
Speaker 2: are there any other important marker bills or important changes
45:28
Speaker 2: or modifications that TRCP or the larger conservation community is
45:33
Speaker 2: advocating for that we should talk to our elected officials about.
45:39
Speaker 3: Yes, dozens.
45:43
Speaker 4: If you really want to get in the weeds as
45:45
Speaker 4: an individual, I'd encourage you to check out the Agriculture
45:48
Speaker 4: and Wildlife Working Group Farm Bill platform. And that's something
45:52
Speaker 4: that we lead a working group of about twenty five
45:55
Speaker 4: of the top national, mostly national nonprofit organizations in the
46:00
Speaker 4: hut fish space. Those groups came together ahead of when
46:04
Speaker 4: we were expecting a farm bill in twenty twenty three
46:06
Speaker 4: and put together a set of priorities. And we've spent
46:09
Speaker 4: the last couple of years, you know, sharing those priorities
46:12
Speaker 4: with with members of Congress and explaining why these.
46:16
Speaker 3: Changes make sense.
46:17
Speaker 4: And you know, I won't run through sort of the
46:21
Speaker 4: full list of those because nobody would listen until the end.
46:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you give your top like two or three?
46:28
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Absolutely. So.
46:30
Speaker 4: One is maintaining our baseline funding for conservation programs. That
46:34
Speaker 4: was including farm build baseline plus the Inflation Reduction Act
46:37
Speaker 4: dollars that we already talked about, so trying to boost
46:40
Speaker 4: that funding. Second, one is just making sure that fish
46:42
Speaker 4: and wildlife conservation continues to be prioritized equally alongside things
46:47
Speaker 4: like soil and water conservation, Continuing to support these voluntary
46:52
Speaker 4: and incentive based programs, and making sure that USCA has
46:56
Speaker 4: enough capacity for conservation.
46:58
Speaker 3: Planning and.
47:00
Speaker 2: Staff. Yeah, we're talking about Yeah, a.
47:04
Speaker 4: Couple of marker bills that you might look at. One
47:07
Speaker 4: was introduced last Congress. We're still waiting to see if
47:09
Speaker 4: they will be introduced this Congress. But that's the CRP
47:12
Speaker 4: Improvement Act, and we already talked about the importance of
47:15
Speaker 4: the Conservation Reserve Program, but this would make several tweaks
47:19
Speaker 4: to that program that would essentially make it look more
47:21
Speaker 4: attractive to landowners. And it would also update payment limitations
47:27
Speaker 4: in that program that haven't been updated since nineteen eighty five.
47:31
Speaker 4: So if you've been tracking inflation at all, you understand
47:35
Speaker 4: that dollar in nineteen eighty five is not the same
47:38
Speaker 4: as a dollar in twenty twenty five. So that's again
47:41
Speaker 4: a bipartisan marker bill, the Conservation Reserve programin Act. We
47:47
Speaker 4: are also working with some of our partners on potentially
47:51
Speaker 4: creating a new easement program. If you're not familiar with
47:56
Speaker 4: with conservation easements, but they're essentially are there are most
47:59
Speaker 4: durable tool that we have for private lands conservation. So
48:03
Speaker 4: essentially a landowner is compensated to give up development rights
48:08
Speaker 4: on that property. The program that we are looking to
48:12
Speaker 4: create would be a forest conservation easement program, and essentially
48:15
Speaker 4: what that would do is it would keep working forests
48:18
Speaker 4: as working forests. Right now, there's a bit of a
48:22
Speaker 4: gap in the eastment programs. We have programs that do
48:25
Speaker 4: a good job with wetlands. Other than there's way more
48:28
Speaker 4: demand than we have funding for. We have programs that
48:30
Speaker 4: do pretty good job with with working farmland and and
48:34
Speaker 4: to some degree ranch land as well.
48:37
Speaker 3: We we have a bit of a gap on the
48:39
Speaker 3: forest side. And obviously, if.
48:40
Speaker 4: You're a you know, if you're a deer hunter, you
48:43
Speaker 4: should care about keeping forests intact, and you probably know
48:46
Speaker 4: a little bit about the importance of of you know,
48:48
Speaker 4: forest management as opposed to you know, stagnant forests management.
48:54
Speaker 4: So that's another market bill that we've been working on.
48:56
Speaker 4: We've also been working on a bill that would caut
49:00
Speaker 4: of I codify some provisions of a big game pilot
49:04
Speaker 4: program that started in Wyoming. It's called Migratory Big Game Initiative. Yeah,
49:10
Speaker 4: and so that's we talked about this a little bit
49:12
Speaker 4: in a working lens for wildlife context, but that would
49:16
Speaker 4: basically allow these programs to work better together, targeted on
49:21
Speaker 4: areas where big game move, so that we would you
49:25
Speaker 4: keep grass line intact and put in wildlife friendly fencing
49:29
Speaker 4: and you know, manage grazing in a way that's.
49:31
Speaker 3: More compatible with wildlife.
49:34
Speaker 4: So those are a few things that we're working on
49:36
Speaker 4: more specifically within the farm bill.
49:49
Speaker 2: I can't remember I'm getting the verbiage right on this,
49:52
Speaker 2: but the North American Grasslands Actor or whatever it was
49:56
Speaker 2: officially called, with that with something like that fall into
49:59
Speaker 2: a future arm bill or is that separate?
50:01
Speaker 4: So the North American Grassland Conservation Act is going to
50:04
Speaker 4: be a great bill. I'm really excited that we're seeing
50:07
Speaker 4: some progress towards that. We already talked about the challenges
50:10
Speaker 4: that grasslands are facing. That will not be part of
50:13
Speaker 4: a farm built that's going to live within the US
50:16
Speaker 4: Ficial Wildlife Service, so outside of USDA.
50:19
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, cool, all right. So I feel like
50:22
Speaker 2: we've pretty clearly established how important this is, how impactful
50:28
Speaker 2: it is for both landowners and non landowners, anyone who
50:32
Speaker 2: cares about keeping open space is open and productive and
50:36
Speaker 2: providing wildlife habitat all. That seems very important. You've also
50:40
Speaker 2: made it pretty clear, though, that we do have some
50:42
Speaker 2: challenges ahead of us to actually get this thing to
50:44
Speaker 2: move forward, given all of the stuff going on these days.
50:50
Speaker 2: For lack of a better term, so what can we do?
50:53
Speaker 2: What did we not do a good enough job of
50:56
Speaker 2: two years ago or last year or whatever to get
50:59
Speaker 2: this thing moving full. What can I, as an individual
51:03
Speaker 2: do to help get a quality farm bill pass that's
51:06
Speaker 2: going to help my hunting in the future of wildlife
51:09
Speaker 2: in America.
51:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, well I'll give I'll give you some some hot intel.
51:13
Speaker 3: I was just in Washington, d C. Last week.
51:16
Speaker 4: I met with a congressional staffer who told me, hey,
51:18
Speaker 4: we did not hear enough from the conservation community about
51:22
Speaker 4: getting a farm bill done.
51:25
Speaker 3: And I took that.
51:25
Speaker 4: There's a gut punch personally because I work on this
51:28
Speaker 4: every day. But the reality is most hunters and anglers
51:32
Speaker 4: don't pay too much attention to this, and and and
51:35
Speaker 4: and don't know much about it. There are some diehards
51:38
Speaker 4: who are absolutely out doing the lord's work on this,
51:43
Speaker 4: but if you look at the average hunter, they're not
51:46
Speaker 4: particularly engaged.
51:47
Speaker 3: And I get it.
51:47
Speaker 4: It can be intimidating to try to you know, if
51:50
Speaker 4: you had asked me several years ago, before I started
51:53
Speaker 4: in this line of work, if I wanted to call
51:54
Speaker 4: my senator's office and tell them to, you know, get
51:57
Speaker 4: off their button get something done, I.
51:59
Speaker 3: Would have really hesitated.
52:02
Speaker 4: But there's very little that US professionals who are you know,
52:07
Speaker 4: calling these offices and working with these offices on a
52:10
Speaker 4: regular basis can do that has the same impact as
52:13
Speaker 4: a constituent calling and saying, listen, this is important to me.
52:17
Speaker 4: I don't necessarily know every single detail, you know, I'm
52:19
Speaker 4: not going to read the bill and and look for
52:22
Speaker 4: through every minute change, every period that gets switched to
52:25
Speaker 4: a comma or whatever it is. But this is important
52:28
Speaker 4: to me. Wildlife habitat is important for me, and we
52:30
Speaker 4: need a farm bill done that that benefits it.
52:34
Speaker 3: And so.
52:36
Speaker 4: The biggest thing that I that I hope folks can
52:39
Speaker 4: do is, you know, take the take the time, take
52:42
Speaker 4: the effort to get informed on conservation programs, on private
52:47
Speaker 4: land conservation, learn about some of these key programs that
52:52
Speaker 4: we talked about today. And then once you're you know,
52:55
Speaker 4: once you're to that level, take a step and get engaged.
52:59
Speaker 4: And we try to make that pretty easy at TRCP
53:03
Speaker 4: dot org. We tend to run action alerts that are
53:06
Speaker 4: already you know, prepopulated, and all you've got to do
53:09
Speaker 4: is enter your information and say that you agree with
53:12
Speaker 4: it and hit send.
53:14
Speaker 3: And those are great.
53:15
Speaker 4: I would love it if everybody who listened to this
53:17
Speaker 4: went and signed on our VPA Improvement Act one right now,
53:20
Speaker 4: that'd be fantastic. But as you gain some comfort, as
53:25
Speaker 4: you gain some some literacy on these programs, just taking
53:29
Speaker 4: that extra step to you know, if your if your
53:32
Speaker 4: congress person is in town and holding a town hall,
53:35
Speaker 4: you know, you don't have to go in and say, hey,
53:37
Speaker 4: we need X dollars for equip and I need you
53:39
Speaker 4: to make sure that it's this ten percent.
53:42
Speaker 3: Is for this.
53:43
Speaker 4: All you have to do is say, hey, I hunt
53:45
Speaker 4: eye fish, I care about farm build conservation.
53:48
Speaker 3: Let's get this done perfect.
53:52
Speaker 2: It's not as scary as some people think it is.
53:55
Speaker 2: Like you said, it doesn't require a whole lot more
53:58
Speaker 2: than a couple of minutes to make a phone call
54:01
Speaker 2: or send one of those action aleart emails. And to
54:04
Speaker 2: your point, every single one of those does help. It
54:07
Speaker 2: does add up. And yeah, we got to make sure
54:11
Speaker 2: that our voice is heard absolutely. Is there is there
54:15
Speaker 2: anything that you have learned over the years eron or
54:18
Speaker 2: heard you know, as you've been on you know, been
54:21
Speaker 2: to DC, talking to folks in office when it comes
54:25
Speaker 2: to the most effective means of doing that, Is there
54:29
Speaker 2: any is there anything that we can do to make
54:32
Speaker 2: our emails a little bit more effective or our voicemail
54:35
Speaker 2: messages a little bit more poignant, or or the timing
54:39
Speaker 2: of when we do this. Sure, I'm just looking for,
54:42
Speaker 2: like any little tweaks or tactics or ways that we
54:45
Speaker 2: can go from doing the baseline to like the best
54:48
Speaker 2: we could do. Is there anything that comes to mind?
54:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great question, and I'll defer back to
54:55
Speaker 4: something a state legislator in North Dakota told me, and
54:58
Speaker 4: he said, half half of people want to hear the
55:01
Speaker 4: story and half of people want to see the numbers.
55:04
Speaker 4: And so if you have both, that's the best. But
55:08
Speaker 4: if you only have one or the other, make sure
55:09
Speaker 4: you use it. And so some of the most effective
55:12
Speaker 4: things that I have seen, specifically from hunters or anglers
55:16
Speaker 4: is hey, if you send a polaroid of you and
55:19
Speaker 4: your kid hunting on a walk in access and say, hey,
55:23
Speaker 4: I care about VPA hip and this is why this
55:27
Speaker 4: is where you know my son or daughter got there
55:29
Speaker 4: first brewster, or you know, hey, I really appreciate your
55:35
Speaker 4: support for the conservation title. The river that I fish
55:39
Speaker 4: is cleaner because of that. Here's a picture you know,
55:43
Speaker 4: we're out, we're out fishing, or even a story of
55:46
Speaker 4: how that happened. That's that's incredibly important, and the numbers
55:49
Speaker 4: are a little trickier for the general public to do.
55:51
Speaker 4: We try to do our best to provide that information.
55:54
Speaker 4: Just as an example, voluntary public Access and Habitat and
55:57
Speaker 4: Center program. For every dollar that Congress and in that program,
56:01
Speaker 4: it generates about eight dollars of spending in rural communities. Well,
56:05
Speaker 4: so you create access, hunters and anglers show up, we
56:08
Speaker 4: spend money, We benefit those rural economies. And so the
56:12
Speaker 4: combination of those two. If I, if I've got that
56:14
Speaker 4: polaroid of a kid with their first rooster, and I've
56:17
Speaker 4: got an eight to one ROI for the program, I
56:20
Speaker 4: can make a pretty compelling argument, and so can so
56:22
Speaker 4: can anybody.
56:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a hard one to argue with when
56:25
Speaker 2: you have both of those arrows in your quiver. Yep, Okay.
56:29
Speaker 2: I want to really quickly shift briefly to the other
56:34
Speaker 2: side of the farm bill conversation, which is, if I'm
56:39
Speaker 2: listening to this and I'm saying yes, yes, yes, I
56:41
Speaker 2: want this stuff to move forward. I'd like these things
56:44
Speaker 2: to happen, and a lot of it's because I own
56:47
Speaker 2: land and I want to actually get involved in some
56:49
Speaker 2: of these programs. I have some friends who are in
56:51
Speaker 2: that boat who have been able to participate in EQUIP
56:55
Speaker 2: or CRP contracts and have better wildlife habitat on their
56:59
Speaker 2: land because of it. And it's become more economical for
57:03
Speaker 2: them to do it because of these cost share programs
57:05
Speaker 2: or payments. But I do think some people are intimidated
57:09
Speaker 2: by getting involved with the government. You know, there's there's
57:13
Speaker 2: some concerns people have about getting in bed with the
57:15
Speaker 2: federal government all that kind of stuff. So can you
57:19
Speaker 2: give us a crash course, a quick rundown of, Hey,
57:23
Speaker 2: if I want to go down this path, how do
57:26
Speaker 2: I do it? What's involved? What kind of best practices
57:30
Speaker 2: should I be aware of if I want to get
57:33
Speaker 2: into the CRP program or participate with any equipped project
57:37
Speaker 2: or something like that.
57:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, that's a that's a good one. The first
57:42
Speaker 4: thing I would say is to the folks who are
57:45
Speaker 4: hesitant to work with a federal agency, I get that myself.
57:50
Speaker 4: If I was going to pick one to work with,
57:51
Speaker 4: it would absolutely be USDA. And I'd say that for
57:55
Speaker 4: a couple of reasons. Number One, USDA's data privacy regular
58:00
Speaker 4: relations are about as stiff as probably the CIA or
58:04
Speaker 4: the irs, which can be pretty frustrating when you're a
58:07
Speaker 4: person like me who's trying to get information about what
58:10
Speaker 4: these programs are doing and where. But it's incredible the
58:15
Speaker 4: level of security that that agency has. The other thing
58:20
Speaker 4: I'll say on that is, if you don't want to
58:22
Speaker 4: dive in straight with the federal agency themselves, look at
58:26
Speaker 4: some of the partner organizations that are enrolling. One would
58:29
Speaker 4: be your conservation districts. That's a local unit of government,
58:32
Speaker 4: usually at the county level. You can talk to somebody
58:35
Speaker 4: who lives in your community who does this work, has
58:39
Speaker 4: worked with your neighbors. I think that's almost always true
58:42
Speaker 4: of the federal staff as well. But if that's not
58:44
Speaker 4: the step you want to take, but talk to your
58:46
Speaker 4: conservation district. They might be in the same building, so
58:48
Speaker 4: you still might have to walk into a federal building,
58:52
Speaker 4: but you'd be dealing with a local person. The same
58:55
Speaker 4: is true for conservation nonprofits, and there's a whole host
58:59
Speaker 4: of them who partner with USTA to do this work.
59:01
Speaker 4: And I always hesitate to name partners because we have
59:04
Speaker 4: so many of them who do this work. But Pheasants
59:06
Speaker 4: forever pops.
59:07
Speaker 3: Into my head right away.
59:08
Speaker 4: They've got a couple hundred farm built biologists who work
59:11
Speaker 4: directly with landowners, and then you've got that intermediarya where
59:14
Speaker 4: you're working with a Pheasants Forever staff person as opposed
59:18
Speaker 4: to know the agency themselves.
59:21
Speaker 2: But that really is Yeah, go ahead, I'm gonna introject
59:23
Speaker 2: really quickly. What does that actually look like. I've never
59:27
Speaker 2: worked with a Pheasant Forever farm biologists, but I've heard
59:29
Speaker 2: a lot of people mention, all they have these farm biologists,
59:31
Speaker 2: they have these farmer guys that do this well. They
59:34
Speaker 2: actually handhold you and help you through the process and
59:38
Speaker 2: be the person that deals with USDA rather than you
59:41
Speaker 2: have And too, how does that work? Do I have
59:43
Speaker 2: to pay them? What goes into that?
59:47
Speaker 3: Yeah?
59:47
Speaker 4: No, I imagine you could find a private contractor and
59:50
Speaker 4: pay them to do that. But no, you would not
59:52
Speaker 4: be right in the check to Pheasants Forever to get
59:54
Speaker 4: that level of assistance. If I can give you a
59:57
Speaker 4: bit of an anecdote, if you don't mind me going
59:58
Speaker 4: on a head for a minute.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: We get hung up on the.
1:00:02
Speaker 4: Cost share side of things. We get hung up on
1:00:04
Speaker 4: the financial assistance. And that's for good reason. We already
1:00:06
Speaker 4: talked about it. It costs money to do this work.
1:00:10
Speaker 4: But again, one of the barriers is where there's a
1:00:12
Speaker 4: lot of demand for those same dollars. So we need
1:00:15
Speaker 4: to from a landowner benefit perspective, we need to think
1:00:20
Speaker 4: about the technical assistance side a little bit. So here's
1:00:25
Speaker 4: what technical assistance is really. So this is this is
1:00:28
Speaker 4: a personal example. I'm going to reveal a deep, dark
1:00:31
Speaker 4: secret of the ceiling behind me. I got a walk
1:00:34
Speaker 4: out basement in my house. As you walk in the door,
1:00:38
Speaker 4: the very first thing you're going to see after you
1:00:40
Speaker 4: get past the dogs is a big hole in the
1:00:42
Speaker 4: drywall and the ceiling two foot by four foot, jagged,
1:00:46
Speaker 4: ugly hole. What happened was the shower above that leaked.
1:00:51
Speaker 4: By the time I got to it, I had a
1:00:52
Speaker 4: mold issue. I cut that drywall out. I'm ashamed to say.
1:00:57
Speaker 4: It's probably been there about as long as since we
1:01:01
Speaker 4: last talked Mark, so.
1:01:02
Speaker 3: It's probably been there a couple of years. So it's
1:01:04
Speaker 3: in my basement.
1:01:06
Speaker 4: I see it.
1:01:06
Speaker 3: I see it multiple times a day. But you know,
1:01:09
Speaker 3: the average.
1:01:10
Speaker 4: Person who comes to the house isn't going to see it.
1:01:11
Speaker 4: They're not going to walk down there. So technical assistance,
1:01:14
Speaker 4: I remember, that's the whole point of the story. I'd
1:01:17
Speaker 4: make a phone call. I'd call that Pheasants Forever Farm
1:01:19
Speaker 4: build biologist, or I'd call in our CS and I'd say, hey,
1:01:22
Speaker 4: I got a I got a hole in my drywall.
1:01:25
Speaker 4: And they'd say, you know what I've been I've been
1:01:27
Speaker 4: doing drywall for fifteen years. I've worked with ten of
1:01:30
Speaker 4: your neighbors on a very similar problem.
1:01:32
Speaker 3: You want me to come out and take a look.
1:01:35
Speaker 4: No cost, Okay, So they come out, they check out
1:01:39
Speaker 4: that hole, spend a little time looking at some of
1:01:42
Speaker 4: my other unfinished progate projects around the place. What are
1:01:45
Speaker 4: my goals? You know what am I actually trying to accomplish.
1:01:49
Speaker 4: They'd give me some examples of folks who tried some
1:01:52
Speaker 4: of the things, some of my hair braiding schemes, and
1:01:55
Speaker 4: tell me why that was a good idea or a
1:01:57
Speaker 4: bad idea. We'd sit down together, we'd write up a plan.
1:02:01
Speaker 4: It would have several options that would fix that hole.
1:02:04
Speaker 4: It would include my budget. They'd probably tell me how
1:02:07
Speaker 4: to keep my other shower drains from drainings from lencoln
1:02:10
Speaker 4: so I wouldn't have to do this again. And then
1:02:14
Speaker 4: they might, you know, they might tell me why, how
1:02:16
Speaker 4: to keep my closet door handles from unscrewing every time
1:02:19
Speaker 4: I open them. More than likely, just based on that
1:02:24
Speaker 4: technical assistance, I'd have that hole patched real quick, right,
1:02:29
Speaker 4: I'd be a lot better situated to avoid it in
1:02:32
Speaker 4: the future. Now, if we took that the step further
1:02:34
Speaker 4: and I applied for something but whatever, the hole in
1:02:37
Speaker 4: the ceiling reduction program, whatever that would be, and they said, okay, well,
1:02:42
Speaker 4: also we're going to pay fifty percent of the cost
1:02:44
Speaker 4: to fix that hole, I'm probably going to get it,
1:02:47
Speaker 4: get it done even faster. But I mean, honestly, that
1:02:50
Speaker 4: hole in my ceiling only hurts me. So we're never
1:02:53
Speaker 4: going to create a federal program to fix that hole.
1:02:57
Speaker 4: If we were talking about soil erosion or wildlife habitat,
1:03:00
Speaker 4: that's when we might start thinking about that cost share.
1:03:02
Speaker 4: But anyway, that's a lot about that conservation planning process.
1:03:05
Speaker 4: Looks like you've got an expert who has done this before,
1:03:09
Speaker 4: who is doing it in your area, with your neighbors
1:03:13
Speaker 4: helping you work through that process. And if you want
1:03:16
Speaker 4: to take the next step and apply for a federal
1:03:19
Speaker 4: program to help you pay for it, great. If you
1:03:22
Speaker 4: just want to have another set of eyes on your
1:03:24
Speaker 4: property giving you some good advice about what made what
1:03:28
Speaker 4: you could possibly do.
1:03:29
Speaker 3: You can do that without ever signing a sheet of paper.
1:03:33
Speaker 2: And so the way to get this process started is
1:03:39
Speaker 2: to either look and see if you have a Pheasants
1:03:42
Speaker 2: Forever Farm Bill biologist in your area, and or to
1:03:45
Speaker 2: just call your local NRCS office. Is that right?
1:03:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep, you'd have a USDA service center most likely
1:03:52
Speaker 4: within the county you live in. You can you can
1:03:55
Speaker 4: just call the first number you see for that office
1:03:58
Speaker 4: and you'll talk to a person who's able to connect
1:04:00
Speaker 4: you to the right spot. Again if you if you
1:04:03
Speaker 4: prefer to work with one of the various nonprofits. Again,
1:04:05
Speaker 4: there's there's dozens of them who have similar agreements like this.
1:04:10
Speaker 4: But pick your conservation organization of choice and see if
1:04:14
Speaker 4: they've got somebody who's working on a partnership with USDDA.
1:04:18
Speaker 2: And there's there's a whole lot of ways that this
1:04:20
Speaker 2: can manifest itself on the ground, right, I mean, I
1:04:24
Speaker 2: know there are dozens of different habitat improvement ideas out
1:04:28
Speaker 2: there that are being discussed within the hunting world and
1:04:31
Speaker 2: various you know, there's ways to improve pollinator habitat, and
1:04:35
Speaker 2: there's native grasslands, and there's forest management, and there's early
1:04:39
Speaker 2: successional habitat, and there's people who want to put in
1:04:42
Speaker 2: water holes or put in prairie strips, or they want
1:04:45
Speaker 2: to put in tree plantings to improve There's all these
1:04:48
Speaker 2: different things that you could do to make your habitat
1:04:50
Speaker 2: better on your land, and I think a lot of
1:04:52
Speaker 2: people probably don't realize that a lot of those projects
1:04:56
Speaker 2: would fall within the scope of something like equip where
1:05:00
Speaker 2: there might be this technical assistance that could be provided
1:05:03
Speaker 2: to you, or coast share provided to you, or maybe
1:05:06
Speaker 2: what you want to do would fall into one of
1:05:08
Speaker 2: the CRP programs where you could be paid to have
1:05:12
Speaker 2: that habitat out there. Right, So, it seems like almost
1:05:17
Speaker 2: almost with anything you might want to do to make
1:05:20
Speaker 2: your deer hunting or pheasant hunting or turkey hunting better,
1:05:22
Speaker 2: they're very likely at least cause enough to call your
1:05:26
Speaker 2: local office and say, Hey, here's the kind of thing
1:05:28
Speaker 2: we're trying to do, here's my goals. Can you help. Absolutely,
1:05:32
Speaker 2: since it's free to at least get that help and
1:05:34
Speaker 2: have that conversation, it seems it seems really hard to
1:05:37
Speaker 2: argue at least trying them.
1:05:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, you know, you want to do prescribe fire,
1:05:42
Speaker 4: there's a practice standard for prescribe fire. You want to
1:05:44
Speaker 4: put in a fuel break so that.
1:05:46
Speaker 3: You can burn.
1:05:47
Speaker 4: There's all sorts of you know, these all have numbers,
1:05:51
Speaker 4: and they all have very specific names because they're within
1:05:54
Speaker 4: a federal system. But you don't have to know, you know,
1:05:58
Speaker 4: oh this this fits as this six or four to
1:06:00
Speaker 4: three restoration of rare declining natural communities. You know, you
1:06:03
Speaker 4: don't have to know that. You just have to say,
1:06:05
Speaker 4: you know, I'm trying to improve habitat I've got a
1:06:08
Speaker 4: eighty acre piece of woods, or I've got a ten
1:06:10
Speaker 4: acre piece that used to be farmed, or you know,
1:06:14
Speaker 4: whatever it is.
1:06:15
Speaker 3: Taking that step is a big one.
1:06:17
Speaker 4: And so I mentioned there's tremendous demand for the financial
1:06:21
Speaker 4: side of these programs. That's absolutely true. But oftentimes if
1:06:27
Speaker 4: there's a state program, or there's a you know, philanthropic
1:06:30
Speaker 4: organization that's putting money towards these things, or or or
1:06:37
Speaker 4: or nonprofit organization that has funding to do this kind
1:06:40
Speaker 4: of work, the folks at that USDA service center are
1:06:43
Speaker 4: going to know about that program. So they might say, yeah,
1:06:45
Speaker 4: we could do it through equip that's what this process
1:06:49
Speaker 4: looks like. But you know, State of Minnesota has a
1:06:52
Speaker 4: similar program. You might be better off talking to them first.
1:06:56
Speaker 4: It's just a really good repository for both the technical
1:07:00
Speaker 4: knowledge and the technical assistance and conservation planning. But also
1:07:04
Speaker 4: you know where else might I be able to find
1:07:06
Speaker 4: financial assistance?
1:07:08
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I I feel ashamed to say that. You know,
1:07:13
Speaker 2: I've not called the nrc office up up north where
1:07:17
Speaker 2: we have a family, uh property that we probably should
1:07:21
Speaker 2: have touched base with, to see if there's something we've
1:07:23
Speaker 2: We've talked to foresters and stuff up there, but I
1:07:25
Speaker 2: actually haven't called n RCS to see if there's some
1:07:28
Speaker 2: kind of state or federal program that we could have
1:07:29
Speaker 2: gotten involved in. So I've got my uh my marching
1:07:33
Speaker 2: orders now too with this reminder.
1:07:35
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's great.
1:07:36
Speaker 2: So with that all said, Aaron, wrapping things up here,
1:07:40
Speaker 2: you mentioned that TRCP has some materials and resources on
1:07:44
Speaker 2: your website. Is there any other specific action items you
1:07:49
Speaker 2: want to give to folks today other than going to
1:07:52
Speaker 2: t RCP dot org and and maybe following through on
1:07:56
Speaker 2: some of those action itms you called to called attention
1:07:58
Speaker 2: to could you could you give us the final one
1:08:00
Speaker 2: two three that you want us to move forward on.
1:08:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so we I mean we talked a little
1:08:06
Speaker 4: bit about making sure you're informed.
1:08:07
Speaker 3: And I'll broaden this out.
1:08:10
Speaker 4: You might have listened to this as a casual you've
1:08:13
Speaker 4: got a casual interest in egg or or a private
1:08:15
Speaker 4: lands conservation, but you're really at heart you're a public
1:08:18
Speaker 4: lands person or you know you're listening to this. You
1:08:21
Speaker 4: like to hunt deer, but I'm I'm a I'm a
1:08:23
Speaker 4: trout fisherman and I fish in Colorado. We work on
1:08:28
Speaker 4: all those issues. My my chunk of that is what
1:08:30
Speaker 4: we talked about today. But we work on all those issues.
1:08:33
Speaker 4: So if if you if you're willing to take the
1:08:35
Speaker 4: time to visit the website, I think you'll find something
1:08:37
Speaker 4: that speaks to you as an individual, and I hope
1:08:40
Speaker 4: you'll you'll get involved there. But just you know, zooming
1:08:44
Speaker 4: out a little bit. Uh, hunters and anglers, especially if
1:08:50
Speaker 4: you take those two groups together, as you know so
1:08:52
Speaker 4: many of us are overlap. Of course, that's a that's
1:08:56
Speaker 4: a big group of people in this country, and the
1:09:00
Speaker 4: traditionally and historically has not been a better set of
1:09:04
Speaker 4: advocates for getting good conservation work done in this country
1:09:09
Speaker 4: than hunters and anglers. And if we allow that voice
1:09:13
Speaker 4: to become quiet, if we allow that voice to you know,
1:09:17
Speaker 4: sit back and watch, we're not going to get the outcomes.
1:09:22
Speaker 3: That we want to see.
1:09:23
Speaker 4: And so I hope folks, uh, we'll just take that,
1:09:26
Speaker 4: take that initiative to you know, just take that next
1:09:29
Speaker 4: step and find.
1:09:30
Speaker 3: A way to get involved. And that might mean, you.
1:09:32
Speaker 4: Know, spending time on our website and signing up for
1:09:34
Speaker 4: action alerts and calling your congress person. Or it might
1:09:38
Speaker 4: mean becoming a member of one of our partner organizations
1:09:41
Speaker 4: and you know, going out and doing that habitat work
1:09:44
Speaker 4: on the ground yourself, or fundraising U there's a there's
1:09:47
Speaker 4: a whole different, whole lot of different ways that folks
1:09:50
Speaker 4: can do that.
1:09:51
Speaker 3: I just hope that folks are willing to take one.
1:09:53
Speaker 2: Of those steps right there with you, Aaron, I I
1:09:57
Speaker 2: will do my best to do my part and on
1:10:00
Speaker 2: everyone listening to join you and me and doing that.
1:10:03
Speaker 4: So I really appreciate you, you know, being a voice
1:10:06
Speaker 4: for conservation, Mark and you know, drawing attention to these issues.
1:10:11
Speaker 2: My pleasure. At the least I can do, given how
1:10:14
Speaker 2: how incredibly much these open spaces, these working lands, these
1:10:19
Speaker 2: white tailed deer and pheasants and grouse and trout and
1:10:22
Speaker 2: bluegill and rabbits have given me and my family. At
1:10:26
Speaker 2: least I can do is try to keep him around, right, absolutely, well, Erin,
1:10:30
Speaker 2: I really appreciate you. Thanks for taking the time to
1:10:32
Speaker 2: do this. I hope that we don't have to have
1:10:35
Speaker 2: the same conversation two years from now. I hope we
1:10:37
Speaker 2: can touch base again and celebrate. How about that.
1:10:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll have to have me on when we get
1:10:42
Speaker 4: something passed, and we can tell you all the good
1:10:43
Speaker 4: things that are in there for hunters and anglers.
1:10:46
Speaker 2: That's a good plan to me, all right, And that's
1:10:51
Speaker 2: a wrap. Thanks for being here, Thank you for tuning in,
1:10:55
Speaker 2: Thanks for being a part of the solution, helping move
1:10:58
Speaker 2: this thing forward. Getting a far bill finally passed, it's
1:11:02
Speaker 2: gonna be good for deer, deer, hunters, pheasants, quale, songbirds, pollinators,
1:11:08
Speaker 2: open spaces, clean water, clean air. It's gonna do all
1:11:11
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff if we can make sure it
1:11:13
Speaker 2: gets over the finish line. So going over to TRCP
1:11:16
Speaker 2: dot org, follow the prompts to get to their farm
1:11:18
Speaker 2: bill page. You know, send that action email, keep on
1:11:23
Speaker 2: getting in touch with your lawmakers on this stuff. Let's
1:11:26
Speaker 2: get this sucker done until next time, Thank you, and
1:11:29
Speaker 2: stay wired to hunt