NACD’s Virtual Advocacy Week is only two weeks away! From March 22-26, NACD encourages conservation districts to reach out to their members of Congress and share the needs of locally-led conservation and how they can provide adequate support to districts so that they can continue protecting our nation’s natural resources.

NACD’s Government Affairs team will be hosting a Zoom briefing at 2:00 p.m. Eastern on March 16 for members and partners participating in the Virtual Advocacy Week. This briefing will be a substitute for the breakfast briefing we normally host in Washington, D.C., where we will review the issue papers and answer any questions that people who are participating in the following week’s meetings may have. For Zoom details, contact NACD Director of Government Affairs Coleman Garrison.

As your state or territory works to schedule meetings, be sure to visit our “Tips and Tricks” document on NACD’s Advocacy Week webpage, where you can also find this year's issue papers. Please contact NACD Director of Government Affairs Coleman Garrison at coleman-garrison@nacdnet.org if you have any questions about NACD’s Virtual Advocacy Week, the Zoom briefing or if you or need additional information.

In 2020, the Butte Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD), located in Arco, Idaho, was awarded a grant from the Friends of NACD District Grants Program to install a locally accessible recycling bin for agricultural chemical containers. With no recycling facilities located within the district, there was a need to appropriately dispose of chemical containers that did not result with them ending up in the landfill.

As a commercial chemical sprayer, Butte SWCD board member Todd Perkes observed first-hand the need for a dedicated recycling bin: “When I would ask customers what they do with their empty chemical containers, all too often the answer was to throw them in the trash.”

Teaming up with Valley Ag in Arco, the Butte SWCD used the Friends of NACD grant funding to build a weatherproof structure at the Valley Ag location. The recycling bin is free for the public to use, whether they are homeowners with only one container or commercial applicators with many. Once the recycling bin is full, Agri-Plas, Inc., an agricultural waste recycling company, will make stops at the bin to collect the containers.

Water quality has always been a high priority for the Butte SWCD. This Friends of NACD grant has helped the district increase its capacity and reach a wider audience, opening the door for the Butte SWCD to provide outreach for urban homeowners and students on water quality issues.

The Butte SWCD hopes this is just the first step in creating even more recycling opportunities within the area. As Butte SWCD employee Stephanie Barnes notes, “We are located so far from the nearest recycling plant, that having local access to these facilities is imperative to the adoption of these practices by our residents.”

Read more about this project in this blog post. Help provide grant opportunities like this to conservation districts around the country and become a Friend of NACD today!

Thanks to a 2018 NACD Technical Assistance Grant, the Oconee Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) has been able to address a backlog of Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) requests and contracts in South Carolina.

“It helped us get some engineering designs completed so that we could get those out the door and to our participants,” said Jason Davis, Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) technician. Most of the designs completed were for livestock watering systems, which included drilling wells and/or installing culverts or stream crossings.

With the grant, the SWCD brought in contractors to provide this technical assistance. One of these contractors stayed in the office to help NRCS with filing and paperwork. “This contractor really helped take some things off Jason’s plate,” said Eddie Martin, SWCD manager. The district also contracted out engineers to do EQIP design work.

The boost in technical assistance has allowed the district and NRCS to help a lot of folks in their area. One example is the large project that was completed for Richard Marcengill, a cattle farmer who needed assistance implementing practices that would allow him to move away from watering cattle in the creek and wetland on his property. With the help of the SWCD and NRCS, Marcengill was able to install six watering troughs and fence his cattle out, providing a cleaner water source on 135 acres.

Marcengill is very happy with the project outcome. “Because of this project, Richard was able to increase his herd size,” Davis said. “He continues to increase his herd size, and now we have another EQIP contract with him to restore and rehabilitate the watershed on his property.”

To read the rest of this story, visit NACD's blog. To learn more about NACD’s Technical Assistance grants or to read other TA success stories, visit the NACD Technical Assistance Grants webpage.

In 2016, together with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), NACD awarded funding through the Urban Agriculture Conservation (UAC) Grant Initiative to the Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District (RCRCD), serving the Western Riverside and San Bernardino Counties in Southern California.

Finally, RCRCD partnered with local growers to establish the Riverside Food Systems Alliance (RFSA), through which they developed and distributed the Fresh and Local guide that provides resources for connecting consumers and farmers to the local food system.

Grant coordinator Diana Ruiz not only led the promotion of Fresh and Local guide, but also worked with RFSA to create an “Inland Grown” brand label for local produce, assisted with marketing, helped build nonprofit capacity for the Riverside Garden Council, presented at Growers’ Forums and more. RFSA built a food rescue program, Gleaners for Good, that rescues fruit for redistribution to local food banks. They were also able to get multiple local farmers’ markets to participate in the Market Match program benefitting CalFresh (food stamp) recipients.

To learn more about this project, click here.

Please indicate your interest on whether you would attend NACD's Summer Meeting in Chicago by taking this quick survey.

A live webinar was held Feb. 3 from 1:00-2:30 p.m. Eastern to answer questions. Click here to watch the recording of the webinar. The deadline to apply is March 29 at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Learn more about the partnership and apply here.

The proposed revisions will be published March 9, with comments due April 8. To learn more, click here.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)'s Conservation Partners Program is now soliciting funding proposals to provide technical assistance to producers on working lands. The program will award approximately $3.8 million in grants in 2021 to support the adoption of conservation practices or regenerative agriculture principles on working lands. 

Details about this funding opportunity are provided in the Request for Proposals (RFP). The submission deadline for pre-proposals is April 6, 2021. Additional application information, including a pre-proposal informational webinar, is available at NFWF's website.

As a part of their “Soil Health: How to Take a Seemingly Impossible Path to Healthy Soil” series, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) recently sat down with Brian Kossman from Paul, Idaho, and Luke Adams from Rupert, Idaho, to discuss how to incorporate no-till in a sugar beet and potato operation. Check out the video and learn more here.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has announced a request for proposals (RFP) for the 2021 National Coastal Resilience Fund.

Pre-proposals are due on Wednesday, April 7. A pre-proposal webinar will be held on Wednesday, March 10. Full proposals are due by June 23. 

Promote your conservation district or state association's tree sale, annual meeting, webinar, field day or more on NACD's Calendar of Events!