The Father of Conservation

In 1935 the "father of soil conservation," Hugh Hammond Bennett, cited the following vision for the newly created Soil Conservation Service:

"It was decided that we would work with nature, and not against her. And above all, we would not undertake to do the job by inviting farmers into a comfortable room to tell them what to do back on their farms. Our specialists will go out on the farmer's land with the farmer her/himself and there decide, cooperatively with her/him what could and should be done in each of the fields, each pasture, woodlot, gully to conserve soil and water. This decision must be reached on the basis of degree of erosion, the slope, kind of soil, and then a plan must be drawn up for carrying out a complete and properly integrated soil conservation job on the entire farm."

Nearly 65 years later our name has changed to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to better reflect the mission of addressing all of the natural resources needs on private lands, but Bennett's vision of providing field-based technical assistance to landusers is just as appropriate today. Nationally NRCS serves private landusers to address 907 million acres of privately owned cropland, pasture, rangeland and woodland.

At the heart of Bennett's proactive approach to conservation was his vision for local leadership through a national network of conservation districts to which he referred,

"One of the best, and certainly the most promising, of devices yet invented by man for dealing democratically and effectively with maladjustment in land use, as well as for carrying forward positive programs of desirable conservation, and for maintaining the work, is the soil conservation district."

In Nebraska, NRCS is meeting Hugh Hammond Bennett's vision by providing assistance through what Bennett would certainly agree is the ultimate in conservation districts, our 23 watershed based Natural Resources Districts. We are meeting private landusers needs through 81 field offices and 12 Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D) offices. We are committed to addressing the conservation needs of 23 million acres of rangeland, 19 million acres of cropland and 8 million acres of irrigated lands. Our 240 field-based technical specialists are out on the land utilizing many Federal, state and local programs to help landusers fulfill their dreams through a voluntary incentive-based approach.