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Release No. 0514.05

**Transcript of the Nevada State Farm Bill Forum With Under Secretary
for Natural Resources and the Environment Mark Rey and Moderator Ed
Foster Mesquite, Nevada November 8, 2005**

MODERATOR: I\'d like to welcome you to the

Nevada USDA Farm Bill forum.

Before we get the forum started, we\'d like

to do the pledge of allegiance.

We are honored to have Lacey Sproul from

Logandale, Nevada. She\'s a 16-year old junior in

high school. Her parents are Alice and Lonnie

Sproul. She has participated in numerous leadership

opportunities, including the State 4-H ambassador,

4-H camp counselor, junior leader, tutor in

elementary school, held offices in her church

leadership council, and is a former member of the

National Junior Honor Society. Through 4-H she has

gained knowledge and skills such as leadership,

public speaking, competence in public and personal

situations, organizational skills and patience.

Lacey, would you please do the Pledge of

Allegiance.

MS. LACEY SPROUL: Please stand and join me

in the Pledge of Allegiance.

(Pledge of Allegiance)

MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Lacey.

One moment please. USDA swiped that.

We would like to now introduce a couple of

representatives from our Congressional delegation who

are present.

Shannon Raborn from Harry Reid\'s office.

(Applause)

MODERATOR: Kevin Kirkeby from Senator

Ensign\'s office.

(Applause)

MODERATOR: Shannon and Kevin, thanks for

coming.

We are very honored to have join us this

morning the director of the Nevada Department of

Agriculture, Mr. Don Henderson.

(Applause)

MR. DON HENDERSON: Thank you, Ed. Thank

you everybody for coming. This is a good turnout for

Mesquite, and we appreciate your coming here.

I\'d like to thank Secretary Johanns and

Under Secretary Rey for holding this Farm Bill

listening session in Nevada. Someone correct me if

I\'m wrong, but based upon my 25 years involved in the

State, I believe it\'s safe in stating that this is

the first Farm Bill hearing or session that has been

held in Nevada.

Based on the unique opportunity this forum

represents, Governor Guinn also sends his

appreciation to the Secretary and Under Secretary for

holding this forum. Unfortunately, the Governor had

other commitments and was unable to attend, but he

sends his welcome and his regards.

So why are we pleased that the USDA is

holding a Farm Bill listening session here in Nevada?

It\'s simply because our agriculture and the

challenges that our producers face and rural dwellers

face that we are so much different from producers

located in the Midwest and Eastern states where much

of the farm policy is developed.

We appreciate that the Secretary has

recognized this point and are making a commitment to

hold their listening forums throughout the nation.

I understand that the Under Secretary drove

out from Las Vegas this morning to host this forum.

Even through most of your travel is limited to the

extreme southern portion of the state, I\'m sure that

it was readily apparent to you that agriculture in

Nevada is fundamentally different than what you would

expect to see in Ohio, Nebraska, New York or

Georgia.

Recognizing this point, we are very pleased

that the Secretary decided to hold this listening

session here in Nevada giving us Nevadans the

opportunity to express our thoughts on how the 2007

Farm Bill can be redirected to better meet the needs

of our producers and rural residents.

I am also looking forward to the input that

will be offered in this forum so we can start

developing clear consensus positions here in Nevada

on what the 2007 Farm Bill should look like.

I had an opportunity to meet with the Under

Secretary back stage, and one thing that I came away

from that meeting with is that he is very well

informed about the differences between the regions in

agriculture production. And I was pleased to see

that.

In fact, he mentioned that his focus on

these Farm Bill listening sessions has been to go out

to the western and extreme northeastern states where

commodity production is not as big as some of the

other issues in terms of the Farm Bill.

But to help set the stage for this forum

and to provide the Under Secretary a little bit more

background, I\'d like to run through a few statistics

and try to explain why agriculture in Nevada is

unique and requires special consideration in the

upcoming Farm Bill.

First, Nevada is the most mountainous state

in the lower 48 states and is the driest state in the

nation. Most of our precipitation comes in the

winter or during the dormant growing season \-- or the

dormant plant season. In the northern portion of the

state, this means that most of our precipitation

comes in the form of snow. Due to its mountainous

and arid nature, about 87 percent of the state is

public land and administered by the federal

government. Only 11 percent of the state is under

private ownership.

Nevada is the fastest growing state and has

been for the past 17 years. With its current

population of about 2.3 million and our vast open

area, Nevada is known as a sparsely populated state

with 21 persons per square mile and 31 acres per

person.

On the other side of the coin, 87 percent

of our population resides in our two metropolitan

areas, Las Vegas and Reno/Sparks. As such, Nevada

has the distinction of being one of the most rural

and at the same time urban populations in the

nation.

The economic engines of the state\'s economy

are gaming and tourism, service industries, and

mining.

The fourth piston in this economic engine

is agriculture. Total receipts from farm marketing

during the previous year approached \$450 million.

While this business activity may seem small and

insignificant to that generated in other state

sectors or agricultural production in adjoining

states, this stable economic engine is critical to

the survival and viability of Nevada rural\'s

communities and economies. 88 percent of this

agricultural production occurs in the 15 rural Nevada

counties excluding Clark County, where we are today,

and Washoe County and Reno.

Keep in mind, only 13 percent of state\'s

population, or about 300,000 people, reside in these

rural counties. So it follows that agriculture

economics it generates is extremely important to

these rural counties. You might say that agriculture

coupled with gaming and mining is what keeps the

light on in rural Nevada.

Due to our land status and arid nature,

cattle, sheep and hay production represents 67

percent of the total annual cash receipts from

agricultural products sold in Nevada.

Production from the big three commodities

in Nevada have remained relatively stable over the

past five to ten years, about a half million head of

cattle, about a hundred thousand head of sheep and

about a half million acres under hay production.

About 55 percent of the land under hay production is

planted to alfalfa.

Areas of growth in traditional agricultural

commodities in Nevada over the past five to ten years

have been in onion and garlic production.

Although small in total revenues but

increasing rapidly, the recent growth in Nevada

agriculture has been in the development of

non-traditional agricultural products and the

exploitation of niche markets.

For example, several Nevada ranchers have

diversified their operations to include recreation or

hunting activities that supplement on-farm income.

Two different parties are experimenting in

the establishment of commercial vineyards. One of

these entrepreneurs is planning a tourist based

commercial winery.

There are some 30 growers in Nevada that

are raising certified organic crops. Many of these

products are being sold in numerous farmers markets

held in Nevada and in California.

We have a hay buyer in Eureka who is

packaging and marketing timothy hay specifically for

rabbit feed. Much of this developing market is

overseas.

We also have several farmers in the state

who are venturing in the relatively new area of

native plant seed production. There has been some

successes in this area.

With about 87 percent of the state under

federal administration, it should come as no surprise

that Nevada is characterized as a rangeland grazing

state. Writer and commentator Lowell Thomas

recognized this when he called Elko, \"the last

cowtown in America.\" The last time I looked, Elko

County ranked fourth in the nation in the number of

brood cows.

Due to the attributes and limitations of

our environment, we raise calves on the open range

that are sold as feeders to market. Our livestock

sector is absolutely dependent upon access to these

federal lands and forests. The changing and evolving

environmental policies on these federal lands

directly affect this industry sector in Nevada and

its economic viability.

With that brief overview, I\'ll sit down and

listen. I understand that I will have an opportunity

to make some concluding remarks at the end.

I thank the Under Secretary for being here

and holding this forum and welcome you to Nevada.

We are pleased that you have come.

(Applause)

MODERATOR: Thanks, Don.

That was nice to hear an overview like

that, the day-to-day workings. I always forget how

many good things are going on in the state.

It is now my extreme privilege to introduce

Mr. Mark Rey. Mr. Rey has served as the Under

Secretary of Agriculture for National Resources and

Environment since October, 2001. He has an

extensive background in national resource and

conservation policy, serving for a time on the staff

of the United States Senate Committee on Energy and

National Resourses.

Please welcome Under Secretary Mark Rey.

(Applause)

MR. MARK REY: Thanks for that kind

introduction. Back stage I noticed that the last act

that used this stage was Herman\'s Hermits. That\'s

probably why we\'re having trouble adjusting the

microphone. It could have been worse. It could have

been the Rolling Stones.

It\'s my pleasure to be here this morning on

behalf of Secretary Mike Johanns to hear directly

from Nevada\'s farmers, ranchers, and rural residents

on issues of concern.

I\'d particularly like to thank Chris

Freeman from the Nevada Association of Conservation

Districts for his hospitality and flexibility in

adjusting scheduling their meetings to accommodate

this session.

In preparing for the 2007 Farm Bill,

Secretary Johanns announced in June what was the

first in a nationwide series of Farm Bill forums to

be held across the country. The first forum was held

in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Secretary, myself,

and a few of our under secretaries have now conducted

48 forums since. This will be the 49th.

I\'m pretty certain this is the first that

is being conducted in a casino, and that\'s probably

appropriate because agriculture is such a crap shoot

sometimes.

Our objective in holding these forums is to

assure that no voice is left unheard as we develop

the next Farm Bill. But before we get too far into

the program, we have a message from the person who

asked Secretary Johanns to solicit ideas from as many

people as possible while conducting these listening

sessions. And if somebody would cue the tape, we\'ll

listen to that message.

(The following taped message was

played:)

\"PRESIDENT BUSH: Thanks for letting me

speak to you all at this Farm Bill forum.

America\'s farmers and ranchers provide a

safe and abundant food supply for our people and for

much of the world. You represent the best values of

America, stewardship of the land, hard work and

independence, faith, service and community.

Mike Johanns understands the importance of

America\'s farmers to our country, which is why I

chose him to lead our Department of Agriculture. I\'m

proud of his work, and he will lead our efforts on

the next Farm Bill.

Secretary Johanns and I believe the first

step in this process is to ask each of you how

today\'s Farm Bill is working and how it can be

better. And as we look to improve American\'s farm

policy, we will continue to focus on the following

goals:

See, American has about 5 percent of the

world\'s population, which means 95 percent of your

potential customers are overseas. So one of our

goals must be to ensure that America\'s farmers and

ranchers have access to open global markets.

A second goal is that we want future

generations to have plenty of opportunities to go

into agriculture.

Thirdly, we need cooperative conservation

that encourages good stewardship of our land and

natural habitats. We also need to act wisely in

delivering help to our nation\'s producers, and we

must promote cutting edge agricultural products and

research.

And, finally, we must ensure good quality

of life in rural America. The Farm Bill is important

legislation that meets real needs. The next Farm

Bill should further strengthen the farm economy and

preserve this way of life for farmers and ranchers of

the future. Hearing your advice is an important

step towards meeting these goals. I thank you for

all you do for our country and thank you for

listening.\"

MR. MARK REY: As you can tell from that

message, our President is determined to seek from the

comments that you offer today be used while

formulating what this next Farm Bill will look like.

As was mentioned in my introduction, I\'m

the Under Secretary for Natural Resources in the

Environment with jurisdiction over the USDA Forest

Service and the Natural Resources Conservation

Service. My career has been spent working in

conservation. As many of you know, the Farm Bill is

one mechanism that helps us to do that.

The 2002 Farm Bill was considered landmark

legislation for the conservation funding it provided

and for focusing on environmental issues. The

conservation provisions of that bill have assisted

farmers and ranchers in meeting environmental

challenges on their land. That Farm Bill simplified

existing programs and created new ones, all seeking

to enhance the long term quality of conservation on

our working farms, ranches and forest lands.

What goes into the Farm Bill can have

long-lasting effects on our nation\'s natural

resources, and that why we\'re here today, to hear

your thoughts, comments and concerns on what should

be included in the next Farm Bill.

To that end, Secretary Johanns developed

six specific questions on which we are seeking

answers today.

The first question relates to the

challenges for new farmers. How do we prepare farm

policy to provide a future for new entries into the

agricultural community?

Policies that we develop should welcome the

next generation of farmers and we should attempt to

the extent possible to avoid unintended consequences

such as higher land prices resulting from

agricultural policy.

The second question relates to how do we

stay competitive in the world marketplace? Today

over 27 percent of cash receipts for agriculture come

from abroad. That\'s a very, very large piece of all

farm income across the country. We must remain

competitive in domestic and global markets in order

to succeed. Indeed, Secretary Johanns would be here

today instead of me but for the fact that he\'s in

Europe negotiating on the next round of agricultural

trade issues.

The third issue relates to farm program

benefits. Is the current distribution system the

most effective way of distributing benefits?

Benefits should stabilize farm prices and

incomes. The current programs, crop insurance is a

good example, and we have had some conversations

across the country about that already, distribution

systems based on past and current production levels.

Some argue those programs favor larger farms over

smaller farms.

The fourth question relates to

conservation. How do we do our conservation policies

in a way that provides for cooperative conservation?

The President, Secretary Johanns, and I

continue to believe that our farmers are the best

conservationists in the nation. Some suggest

anchoring farm policy around conservation and

tangible benefits produced by clearer air and water

and less developed landscapes.

The fifth question relates to rural

economic development. How can federal rural and farm

program provide effective assistance in rural areas?

If you look back at the Farm Bills of the

past, there wasn\'t much there relative to rural

economic development. In the 2002 bill, it was a

pretty significant piece. Farming and rural America

were once synonymous, but demographic and economic

characteristics of some rural areas have changed, in

some cases changed dramatically. Some believe we

should invest more in the infrastructure of rural

America as part of an overall farm policy.

And then the last area is the expansion of

agricultural products, markets, and research. We

have great resources at our disposal at the

Department of Agriculture. But what we\'re interested

in knowing is what are we doing right with those

resources in terms of research. And if we are not

doing things right, what should we be doing instead?

Agriculture is rapidly changing, and some

say policy should do more to help develop the new

products and markets than current farm policy allows.

So those are the six questions that we are

primarily interested in hearing from you about.

Obviously, however, we would be interested in hearing

anything that you believe of concern and of use in

developing the next Farm Bill.

If we run out of time here today after

everyone is done or if you simply think of something

that you forget to say, please know that you can

always go to www.USDA.gov, and click on \"Farm Bill

forums.\" Comments submitted on the web in writing or

voiced here today will all be given the same weight

and the same exact amount of study and analysis.

Before I conclude, I do have one message

for the young people here in the audience. You are

the reason that we are here. You\'re the reason that

the President directed us to conduct this series of

forums. We hope the advice and ideas that we get

here today and in other places around the country

pave the way for your future success.

So Lacey, and those of you who are friends

here today, don\'t be shy about offering your views as

to what the next Farm Bill should look like because

you more than any of the rest of us will probably

have to live with the results.

Now I\'m done speaking. In fact, you\'ll

hear very little from me for the rest of the day as

the purpose of this session is for me to hear from

you. So I\'ll just be sitting quietly taking notes so

that I can record accurately and reflect on what you

are going to tell us.

Again, thank you for being here today, and

I look forward to a productive discussion this

morning.

(Applause)

MODERATOR: Very quickly a little bit of

minor housekeeping before we get to the comments

portions of this morning\'s program. Please visit, if

you haven\'t already, the various display booths in

the back corner of the room. These booths have a

litany of information on the various USDA agencies

and their programs. There are also USDA employees

on hand to answer any questions you may have about

those programs.

Also in the back of the room, please take

note of the USDA help desk. This particular

listening session is specific to the upcoming Farm

Bill and what should be included in it. If you have

got a question on some other bill, some other

legislature or any other issue related to any USDA

program, perhaps even one you\'re presently enrolled

in, please utilize the expertise of the USDA staff at

that help desk.

In the interest of hearing from as many of

you as possible today, we\'re going to ask that you

limit your comments to two minutes each. As the

Under Secretary mentioned, if you are unable to make

a comment today or simply think of something you

forgot to say or wish to expand on the comments you

do make today, please do so online at www.USDA.gov,

and click on the \"Farm Bill Forums\" link.

Just to emphasize, comments submitted here

this morning, online, or through the mail are all

given the exact same amount of weight and analysis.

Also, if you brought a written statement or

any other documentation you\'d like to leave for the

Under Secretary, please just drop it in either of the

comment boxes in the back.

Finally, if you\'d like to make a comment

today, please step up to either microphone in the

front. We do have some chairs there. So just take a

seat, and we\'ll take the comments in the order that

you\'re sitting there.

And before offering your comment, please

state your first and last name, your city, state, and

your role in agriculture. Also it\'s helpful if you

could state which question that you are addressing as

far as the six questions that Mr. Rey did mention.

If you are having a tough time

characterizing your comment, don\'t worry about it.

They will figure it out after the fact.

So please speak clearly so that we can

capture your comments. Today\'s proceedings are being

recorded and transcribed and will be published in the

Federal Register, pretty exciting for us here in

Nevada.

And with that, I will ask for our first

comment.

MR. KEYTH DURHAM: It\'s a pleasure to have

you here today. We are honored to have you with us

Under Secretary Rey. My name is Keyth Durham. I\'m

from West Wendover, Nevada, but I chair the state\'s

Rural Development Council. We became an organization

in about approximately three years ago, and our theme

is keeping the lights on in rural Nevada. We have a

council that cuts across the board that represents

all segments of rural Nevada. And I think what we

are trying to do is establish and make sure that

there is a voice for rural Nevada.

With the changes that have occurred

recently in legislation, we find that our voice has

become more critically important for the voice

speaking on behalf of all aspects of rural Nevada.

We are particularly interested in the Farm Bill. In

the past there are been funding provided for Rural

Development Councils out of salaries and benefits.

We are requesting that a separate line item

be included in the bill this year to assist us in our

efforts to represent rural Nevada.

I have had great opportunity in working

with the USDA over the last several years. Became a

passion with rural Nevada in 1991 when I moved to a

city in central California. And when I moved here in

1998, that passion continued. So we are grateful for

what the USDA has done for us.

I remember a city that really was based on

funding from USDA. Water systems, housing, and so

forth, I have dealt with all aspects relating to

economic development as a part of it. And I want to

thank you for the opportunity of speaking to you

today.

MS. LACEY SPROUL: Good morning. My name

is Lacey Sproul. I\'m a 16-year old junior at Moapa

Valley High School. I have been actively involved

with the 4-H for seven years and the FFA for three

years. I\'m currently the secretary of my 4-H club, a

Nevada State 4-H Ambassador, President of my FFA

chapter and the Nevada FFA Southern Zone Secretary.

As you can tell, I am actively involved in

many team leadership programs for the State of

Nevada, and they have had many large impacts on my

life. It has helped me become a better speaker, has

also helped me better work in team settings and has

provided me with many leadership opportunities to

grow and develop.

I live in a very urban populated county,

but in the rural part of it on a small ranch. Nevada

is one of the most urban states in the nation, but

that doesn\'t lessen the importance of agriculture and

the impact it has in and across the state.

Agriculture takes a non-traditional path in Nevada

compared to other states.

In Nevada the federal government manages an

estimated 64.5 million acres or 87 percent of the

state\'s landmass, the highest percentage of federal

ownership in the country.

As a Nevada youth looking at the future of

our state, it is important for me to know that the

needs of all citizens and communities are met and

never overshadowed by the demographics of the state.

USDA support in the Farm Bill for the land

grant universities and cooperative extension makes

the 4-H program a reality for youth in both rural and

urban communities across Nevada. This support makes

it possible for youth like me to broaden their

horizons and take advantages of the many youth

development programs offered through the 4-H,

including the 4-H club program, 4-H Afterschool,

Operation Military Kids, and youth and adult

partnerships.

These programs have a huge impact on the

lives and well-being of countless youth across Nevada

and the United States. They help empower youth to

develop into adults by giving them a sense of

belonging where they can master the skills and tools

to grow into productive citizens while still giving

back to their community. 4-H is a community of young

people across Nevada and America learning leadership,

citizenship and life skills. It builds the leaders

of tomorrow.

Thank you.

MR. BOB ASHWORTH: Good morning. My name

is Bob Ashworth. I\'m with the Nevada Division of

Forestry out of Carson City, and I currently hold the

position of Deputy State Forester.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment

on the 2007 Farm Bill. This is truly a unique

opportunity. Over 40 percent of our nation\'s forest

lands are family owned forests and are a key

functional component in farm, forest and ranch

operations.

Our family forests, like production

agriculture, provide a wide array of tangible and

marketable forest products to our country and the

world. Sustainable forestry through the Forestry

Title of the Farm Bill is critically important to

our national economy and the maintenance of healthy

forests and watersheds.

Our forest lands are under significant

attack on a variety of fronts including insects and

disease, drought, wildfire, and urbanization. More

than 44 million acres of private forest nationwide,

approximately 11 percent, are expected to fall under

urban development and fragmentation into smaller

parcels.

The desires of the American public to live

and recreate in forested areas and the pressures of

high taxes and dwindling markets for forestry

products are forcing private landowners to sell their

forest lands.

A perfect example is in the Sierra front in

northwestern Nevada where real estate prices have

recently doubled and even tripled placing tremendous

pressure on private forest landownerships.

Scientifically based forestry practices are

one of the many tools available to achieve our common

goals of healthy watersheds, clean water and air, and

diversity in our flora and fauna resources. Over ten

million family forest landowners require technical

and financial assistance to achieve and maintain

healthy functioning forests. Technical and financial

assistance result in economic and environmental

sustainability. An educated forest landowner is a

far better forest manager for the long term.

Together, state and federal forest and

natural resource agencies are ready and able to

assist in building the best and most comprehensive

Farm Bill in history. The Nevada Division of

Forestry is excited about the opportunities the 2007

Farm Bill will bring to the natural resource

management in the coming years and look forward to

implementing the Farm Bill\'s initiatives.

Thank you. And I appreciate the

opportunity to comment on Question 4.

MR. DEE SESSIONS: My name is Dee Sessions.

I\'m the Natural Resource Coordinator, State and

Private Forestry for the U.S. Forest Service. I\'m

representing Region 1 and 4, which consists of North

Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. My office

is in Ogden, Utah.

I\'m addressing Question 4, how can farm

policy best achieve conservation and environmental

goals.

We would like to see the 2007 Farm Bill

reinforce commitment to the non-industrial private

forest landowner. We need to recognize the role that

non-industrial forest landowners play in providing

social, economic, and ecological benefits to the

rural communities as well as to the nation. NIPF

landowners own 42 percent of the forest lands in the

United States. 66 percent of our nation\'s critical

watersheds are NIPF lands. 62 percent of the wood

products produced nationwide come from NIPF lands.

This all goes along with cleaning our

nation\'s air. For every ton of forest vegetation,

1.5 tons of carbon dioxide is removed from the air

and 1.5 tons of oxygen is given off as a byproduct.

Other uses of NIPF lands include, but are

not limited to hunting, fishing, hiking, camping,

sightseeing, harvesting miscellaneous forest

products, et cetera, and of course, protection of our

cultural resources.

Reauthorize in the 2007 Farm Bill the

Forest Land Enhancement Program, better known as

FLEP, administered by the U.S. Forest Services as

well as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program,

or EQIP, administered by NRCS and other such

cost-share programs.

The Farm Bill needs to pay strong attention

in dealing with invasive species because these exotic

invaders are the primary threat to productive

farms, range, and forest lands, as well as to

protection of endangered species.

We need to find incentives to keep the NIPF

lands intact. In dry states such as Nevada, and also

other intermountain west states and the southwest,

urbanization of forest watersheds is one of the

greatest threats.

Thank you for your time and thank you for

coming to Nevada.

MR. ALLAN PARKER: Good morning. My name

is Allan Parker. I\'m a business consultant for Rural

Nevada Development Corporation. I work in Pahrump,

and I\'m going to address the issue of economic

development.

The Rural Nevada Development Corporation is

a nonprofit development corporation formed in January

1992 to serve the 15 rural counties and the 27 Native

American tribes in Nevada. Among the many programs

that RNDC offers rural Nevada, it has also been

successful as a small business alternative lender.

> RNDC has and will continue to make available the

means of capital to start up businesses or existing

businesses wishing to expand in the hopes of

providing the opportunity for industrial and

commercial growth. As a non-traditional lender of

last resort, RNDC maintains assistance to those

businesses unable to meet their capital needs through

traditional lenders. The goal is to generate jobs

and tax revenues and to provide essential services

to those industries and citizens within the eligible

counties and tribes of Nevada.

Being the only intermediary for USDA\'s

intermediary lending program, RNDC has been very

successful as a non-traditional lender for rural

businesses throughout the State of Nevada. To date,

we have funded 59 businesses in 14 counties for a

total of just over \$5 million. Three hundred

seventy-three jobs have either been created or

retained through these businesses.

As an organization we fully support the IRP

program authorized by the Farm Bill.

However, the IRP program is highly

competitive on a national basis, and RNDC has found

it difficult to obtain continued funding. The amount

of our pending applications exceeds the amount of

funds available. It has been necessary for RNDC to

seek alternative financing to augment this program.

Due to the limited amount of funding in the

Farm Bill for the IRP program and the large number of

intermediaries applying for these funds, it would be

beneficial to all rural communities to have an

increase in the amount available for this program.

Not only do we support the Farm Bill

funding, we strongly urge USDA to increase the amount

available in the IRP fund nationwide.

Thank you for listening.

MR. JOHN HUNT: My name is John Hunt. I\'m

with the Conservation District of Southern Nevada,

and my question is the use of the Farm Bill as a

gauge to the success of the NRCS and the RC&D

programs. In Southern Nevada there is not a lot \--

we are not a lot of use for the Farm Bill. We don\'t

have the rural component that a lot of counties

have. And what I would like to see is we have

noxious weeds, we have water quality programs, air

quality programs, all the same, but I would like to

see some way of not tying the success of the RC&Ds

and the NRCS in Clark County, which we are in now,

to the Farm Bill. There should be another gauge.

Either that, or open up more of the programs of the

Farm Bill to where they can be utilized in the rural

urban parts of Southern Nevada.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Just a quick a little bit here.

Be sure you please stand up to the microphone

because in addition to Mr. Rey wanting to hear your

comments, I\'m sure the rest of the audience does as

well. I\'m supposed to pick up the microphone, but it

doesn\'t work.

Next please.

MS. JILL SARICK: My name is Jill Sarick.

I\'m with the Nevada Tahoe Conservation District in

the Lake Tahoe Basin.

I just wanted to make a comment that

basically follows up with gentleman. Basically, I

know right now that about half of the world\'s

population lives in cities. Rural land is being

consumed at an alarming rate in the United States.

We work in the Lake Tahoe Basin where over 90 percent

of our work is with urban lots. We are doing a lot

of technical assistance through NRCS, one of the

leaders there, for private best management practices

and large scale environmental improvement projects,

which is protecting Lake Tahoe\'s clarity, which is a

national resource.

And so, as I understand it, I think there\'s

a proposal on the table for some of the funding for

new Farm Bill programs which are really going to be

add specific to be coming out of the operations and

maintenance budget. That\'s where we get the majority

of our funding, if not all of it. If this program

gets cut, our program gets cut significantly, thereby

affecting the work that is being done on the Tahoe

Basin. So I just wanted to stress that.

Thank you.

MS. MARLENE WALLACE: My name is Marlene

Wallace. I live in Esmeralda County, one of more

rural counties of Nevada, and I\'m with the Esmeralda

Conservation District.

We are alfalfa farmers there. My biggest

concern is regarding the benefits that the dairy

industry gets, that they are not equal to the hay

growers who supply those diaries. We recently had an

FSA representative attend one of our meetings to give

us the lists of the programs that are available to

farmers and ranchers and agriculture in the state.

And it seems funny that none of those programs

involve alfalfa farmers.

They have the MILC program which is a

safety net for dairy farmers. And we would please

like to see some benefits and programs in the future

for alfalfa farmers.

Thank you.

MS. NANCY HALL: My name is Nancy Hall.

I\'m the assistant director of the Muddy River

Regional Environmental Impact Alleviation Committee,

MRREAC, out of Moapa Valley, Nevada, and I\'m

addressing Question 4, how can farm policy best

achieve conservation and environmental goals.

The Muddy River Regional Environment

Alleviation Committee is a non-profit organization

founded locally in 1994. This organization works for

solving environmental problems that could affect the

people along the Muddy River and Meadow Valley Wash,

tributaries to the Colorado River.

MRREAC has the cooperation of the local

private landowners, ranchers, businesses, and area

residents. MRREAC consistently seeks grants for the

approval and restoration of the Muddy River and the

Meadow Valley Wash.

Nevada Division of Forestry is the

foundation of this project, and the crews have

worked for MRREAC since the beginning. Over a

ten-year period, MRREAC and Nevada Division of

Forestry have cleared approximately 140 acres of

solid tamarisk, also known as salt cedar along the

Muddy River. Removing tamarisk allows the native

species to regenerate and we also do planting to

speed up this process.

Removing tamarisk also helps with water

quantity and quality as an acre of tamarisk consumes

1.3 million gallons of water a year and also drops

all types of salts on the ground and into the water.

We have eliminated knapweed from some areas of the

upper Muddy using goats and hand pulling along with

herbicides.

The goals are simple, to clear as much

tamarisk as possible from the Muddy River and the

Meadow Valley Wash. The sites we are working on show

an increase in native plants as well as native fish,

invertebrates, birds, and animals. This project will

continue to deliver increased water quantity to the

river and the rural community as well as increasing

habitat in native species.

The majority of the grants we have received

from the Nevada Division of Forestry are funded

through the cost-share programs such as the Forest

Land Enhancement Program, or FLEP, administered by

the U.S. Forest Service.

We would like to see that the 2007 Farm

Bill reinforce commitment to non-industrial forest

landowners and reauthorize into the 2007 Farm Bill

the Forest Land Enhancement Program. By doing so,

will help fund projects such as described.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. I\'ll have to stand

up here. I have a dead mike there. I just wanted to

make sure I thanked everyone as they\'re speaking. I

also urge you if you do have a comment prepared, come

on up.

I know that Mrs. Wallace from Esmeralda

County, are you related to Grant?

MS. WALLACE: Yes.

MODERATOR: I was going to say, Nevadans

might want to think about this as far as a comment

goes, on Friday, I believe, Grant came up to my

office at the Department of Agriculture in Reno, and

that\'s a perfect example of a young man who takes

farming seriously. He and his father, Leland, have

done a great job down there.

Again, it gets back to what Mr. Rey said

earlier, the young people are the ones who are going

to take this forward. I just wanted to kick that in.

Some of you might think, \"Well, I don\'t really know

what I want to say to the Under Secretary.\" This is

a perfect chance, again, as Mr. Henderson said,

we\'ve never really had this chance before in Nevada,

so get your brain cells working there.

Young lady, you\'re next.

MS. ELISA CALLISTER: Thank you for calling

me young. My name is Elisa Callister. I am a board

supervisor for the Conservation District of Southern

Nevada and an administrator for a rural non-profit

group called \"Partners in Conservation.\" I live in

Moapa, Nevada, a fifth generation Moapa Valleyite.

I would like to thank you, first of all,

for the opportunity to speak and appreciate very much

your coming to Nevada. We really appreciate that.

I would like to address Question 6 and

state that the Moapa Valley High School has the only

ag farm left in the State of Nevada, and so that it

isn\'t the last ag farm, I would like to request that

you appropriate funds specifically to go into the

schools in the rural communities so that students

have the opportunity to have hands on education like

they do in Moapa Valley High School and that you

provide funding so that these students can

participate in the innovative and new cutting edge

opportunities and ideas that are out there.

For example, the Moapa Valley High School

ag farm and student body are participating in a straw

bale structure with the Conservation District of

Southern Nevada, and we are having a tour of that

today. We would love for you to come out and see

that. It\'s cutting edge innovative conservation

design, and students are actively participating in

that.

Ask that you provide funding to involve the

entire student body, marketing and business classes

can participate in marketing some of the products

that the ag farm grows. Science, biology classes can

work on research projects.

We had a recent graduate of Moapa Valley

High School who majored in chemistry, and now has a

job with Bear Creek Soup Company up in Utah that

sells dry soup mixes. So all facets of the

educational arena can go back to agriculture.

And thank you every much for your time.

MODERATOR: Thank you.

UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Hi, how are you today?

Thank you again for coming to our beautiful State of

Nevada. I would like to ask you \-- I believe this

would go to Question No. 3 on the benefits for

everyone.

I would like to know is there any way that

you can help the farmers and ranchers with this high

fuel costs. It is just totally wiping us out. So I

would like to see something in the Farm Bill that you

can either give us a refund on a certain percentage

or a discount somehow or another.

I think that would interfere with your new

farmers, new ranchers, I mean, with the cost of

everything, the land and fuel right there, they don\'t

have a small chance. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you. That\'s amazing.

After about six months of having high prices on gas,

I mean it\'s really taking a little bit of time to

realize just how much it does affect us in every

industry, especially agriculture. Everything is

always running on gasoline.

Sir.

MR. BRIAN THOMAS: Hi. My name is Brian

Thomas. I\'m with the Duck Valley Conservation

District, the oldest Native American Conservation

District in the U.S., and I\'m a member of Shoshone

tribe of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation.

I\'m going to touch a little on the 22

recognized tribes in the State of Nevada, and 13 of

these are federally recognized tribes that have

established commercial and cultural operations

contributing substantially to the economy of the

reservations.

American Indian farm operations on

reservations are just beginning to be counted by the

American Agriculture Census statisticians as

individual operators. The \'92 census and earlier

census counted the American Indian farm operation as

a single farming unit. The reservation during the

\'97 census in effect took place to count farm

operations on reservations who were not counted

individually. Estimated data for operations not

reporting individually was generally obtained from

the reservation officials.

Statisticians are still making efforts to

count farm operations on the reservations to improve

the accuracy of data collected.

What I want to touch on today is how should

farm policy be designed to effectively and fairly

distribute assistance to producers.

The increase in conservation program

funding, especially for private owners, should be

more competitive with all reservations operations and

global markets, and to work with the youth oriented

programs, FAA, 4-H, and other educational

opportunities for the youth and the development for

the future of their children in the future is what we

need to look at in the future and keep non-ag loans

open to youth since these loans have shown to be

significantly beneficial to tribal youth across the

West.

And the other is the limited resource farm

producers on reservations, the size of agricultural

operations are from 5 to 160 acres on trust lands

taken as individual operations. These farms are not

financially feasible to support a farm family. Many

of these lands contribute to the environmental

degradation of ecosystems and need to be addressed by

the USDA programs.

Allotments, which are individually owned

trust lands, range from 10 acres to 20 acres in

reservations across the State of Nevada. Individuals

do not provide adequate land base in their time to

support an agricultural rural operation without

having supplemental off-farm income. And this is

where it gets hard for ranchers and farmers on

reservations to get adequate financing for their

cost-share programs such as EQIP and the other

programs the USDA puts out to them.

And on the tribal trust lands, assignments

cannot be used as collateral to the assignee for

agricultural operations. And we can\'t just go to a

bank and ask for \$120,000 to try to finance a

program or a project where we can work on under these

programs.

On behalf of the conservation districts, we

are looking at water quality and quantity on the

reservation because that is a lifeline of the Native

American people in the production \-- in the future

production.

With that, thank you very much.

MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Duck

Valley, a great little spot, I have the opportunity

to go up to Idaho two or three times a year. Take

the Mountain City Highway and go through there. It\'s

a great spot. Look at the herd of wild horses up

there.

MR. LELAND WALLACE: I\'d like to thank you

for coming to Nevada also. I\'m Leland Wallace. I\'m

the other part of the family.

My concern is transportation, and that

probably comes under marketing which was the last

one, No. 6.

But I don\'t think it\'s going to get any

better, the diesel, and being as rural as we are, and

the problems not only with the diesel and stuff and

the truckers being available, we have got problems

with between interstates also. And I think there

could probably be maybe something done with along

with the interstate line that maybe would not

necessarily cost a lot of money, but would sure make

it a lot easier for individuals that have to move

their crop great distances to markets a lot more

feasible than it is now.

Such as long trailers and stuff that are

available in Nevada. They come into our valley, they

drop everything, they unload everything. Here we are

gas and diesel again and labor. And then they load

it back on the trucks that are short enough to go

into California to take the hay to the market. And

it\'s just a lot more labor and stuff because we can\'t

get states in order to cooperate to get our stuff to

market. We don\'t have the rivers. We don\'t have

the railroads. We have the trucks, and we are going

to be stuck with the trucks.

So if something could be done along that

line would benefit agriculture as a whole whether

you\'re hauling cattle, whether you\'re hauling hay,

whether you\'re hauling milk, it would help Nevada

where we don\'t get lot of the commodity programs and

the programs that are available in some of the other

states. We don\'t have a need so much for those,

but, boy, the transportation would sure help.

Thank you again for coming.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Leland. Boy, that\'s

a good point. Living next store to California is

sometimes a great thing, sometimes a little

irritating there.

Sir, please.

MR. SAM ROUTSON: Good morning,

Mr. Secretary, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, my

name is Sam Rautson. I\'m with U.S. Foods, Winnemucca

Farms, Nevada\'s largest single agricultural producer

and food processor.

And with the holiday season upon us, I

would urge you all and your extended family to

purchase and consume prodigious amounts of Pringles,

Potato Crisps, and also Paradise Valley Creamy Mash

all natural brand potatoes which you can buy in

Costco nationwide.

Mr. Secretary, one of the issues \-- or

several issues that we face that have been alluded to

this morning, of course, are the skyrocketing cost of

energy. Agriculture because of its low margin of

profitability cannot sustain the increased energy

costs. Agriculture cannot pass those increased costs

on to those who we sell products.

Also in Nevada because it is a very large

and sparsely populated state, we, of course, have

problems, as again was mentioned earlier, with

transportation, moving our products to markets. One

of the issues that we face in our industry is the

marginal railroad service that we have here in

Nevada.

With that, and I don\'t know where it would

fit in this morning\'s discussion, but I would be

interested in perhaps some comments on if it was

reported correctly in the news media the comment of

President Bush as he completed his recent tour of

Latin America in response to comments from Latin

American leaders, President Bush indicated that he

saw the need to reduce and eliminate farm payments.

And with that, what \-- how that will fit into farm

policy and coming into this Farm Bill which will be

coming up.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, sir. Winnemucca

Farms, I was just there last week. Wonderful

operation. You\'re doing a great job up there. I\'ll

say this, too, you do an excellent job of marketing

and selling product. Guys like Brad Harper who

worked at Winnemucca Farms and other people, it\'s

really something to behold.

Any other comments out there this morning?

Kelly, I figured you might have a comment.

MR. KELLY McGOWAN: Good morning and

welcome Under Secretary Rey. I\'d first like to say

that I\'m Kelly McGowan with the Nevada Division of

Conservation Districts, and District for over 60

years had enjoyed a very fruitful and beneficial

relationship with the Natural Resources Conservation

Service in Nevada.

One of the things that I wanted to bring up

is contribution agreements within NRCS. While

currently not utilized by conservation districts of

Nevada, they remain a very viable opportunity for

both conservation districts and NRCS.

And we would like to see, along with continued

funding, a broader range on how those agreements may

be structured and the types of work programs that

could be addressed under those agreements.

This would allow NRCS and conservation

districts to offer greater technical assistance to

better serve ag and livestock producers as well as

address a wide range of natural resource conservation

issues facing the districts and their constituents.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thanks, Kelly.

Good morning, Randy.

MR. EMM: Sam, you\'re too tall.

My name is Randy Emm, and I\'m a farmer and

rancher on the Moapa River Indian Reservation in

Western Nevada. And I\'m here to address the

implementation of the conservation programs on the

Indian reservations.

As was mentioned earlier, the land on the

Indian reservations is not readily accessible to

financing, and as such, it is hard to obtain

financing to implement the conservation programs

that are available through NRCS and other USDA

programs.

Farming and ranching activities on the

Indian reservations comprise approximately 18 to 20

percent of the land in Nevada that is farmed and

ranched. That includes grazing. Again, I\'m not

including the federal grazing lands. I\'m looking at

private.

But because of this, the implementation of

the conservation programs on Indian reservations has

not proceeded in the manner which I think it should

because of the trust restrictions and the

availability of capital. Most of the programs are

cost reimbursable, which means that you have to come

up with the total cost first, get the program done,

and then request for reimbursement.

Because of this situation, programs,

conservation programs, implemented on Indian

reservations, I believe the cost shares need to be

increased due to the very nature of the lands, just

basically the financing portion of the lands.

So thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Randy.

Mr. Pearson, good morning.

MR. NICK PEARSON: Nick Pearson, chairman

of the Washoe-Storey Conservation District. One

thing I would like to emphasize as part of Don\'s

facts was Nevada is a very large state. Yes, we

have 87 percent federal land. Take the other 13

percent left, and it\'s still bigger than all New

England. It\'s something to say. It covers a lot of

ground.

RC&D program, I can\'t overemphasize the

importance of maintaining and increasing the RC&D

program. It\'s an extremely valued local tool by

locally elected officials in our community. They

have done ten of thousands of successful projects

each year across the countryside. We need to

maintain the RC&D program.

The second point is I\'d like to, yes, even

reopen some of our urban offices, maintain existing

ones and even reopen existing offices. A previous

state conservationist that was in our state closed

the Reno field office and just about decimated local

programs and ability to deal with a lot of very

concerning and environmental problems. Many of our

rural problems start in urban areas. Weeds for

examples, basic species, start in urban areas. So

you need to revisit maybe office reopenings.

Universities and colleges is another point.

I\'d like to see that universities and colleges be

eligible for USDA farm programs. For example, EQIP.

It makes environmental sense to improve college

sites. It make educational sense there should be

demonstration sites. And there\'s a whole litany of

other things as far as needing to make USDA programs

available to colleges and universities.

That\'s all I have on that.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Dick.

Any other comments? Great opportunity for

us here, gang.

Good morning.

MS. BARBARA PERLMAN WHYMAN: Welcome. I\'m

Barbara Perlman Whyman. I\'m a supervisor with the

Tahoe Nevada Conservation District.

I just wanted to make a statement regarding

a comment that was made in the introduction which

has to do with the fact that here in the State of

Nevada, we are faced with the interfacing between

urban development upon our rural lands, and the rural

lands are living and have been there for many, many

years.

And I\'m addressing this to No. 4 with the

conservation and environmental concerns. We often

address these issues and use terms which, although we

hear them all the time, we don\'t have a working

definition. And I would really like the USDA in the

Farm Bill to define \"sustainability\" because it

underlines a lot of what we do, what we strive for,

and what our goals are, and yet, the interpretation

becomes very fuzzy. And I see this \-- I happen to

sit on the Pathway Forum which is a collaborative

endeavor to work with the U.S. Forest Service, the

Lahontan Water District, the Tahoe Regional Planning

Association, and the Nevada EPA to plan the next 20

years for the Tahoe Basin.

And within that, the collaborative process,

it becomes really imperative that we are talking the

same language regardless of which department is

interpreting the statutory and regulatory and

technical assistance.

And so within the Farm Bill, it becomes

really important for you to define the terms that you

use and make them become a working operative

definition for all of us to use.

And I thank you for your consideration.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Good comment. As

you well know, anything that has to do with Lake

Tahoe is always very complex with the by-state and

the different agencies within that state.

Very well put. Thanks.

Good morning, Chris.

MR. CHRIS FREEMAN: Good morning. I\'m

Chris Freeman, president of the Nevada Association of

Conservation Districts, and a supervisor at Lake

Tahoe, Nevada Lake Tahoe Conservation District. My

comments are kind of going to be overall looking at

the future of the Farm Bill is, one, national

priorities for conservation are very important, but

also we need to look at maintaining locally led

resource issues as a priority too, and also the

conservation districts being a leader and working

with private landowners and planning programs through

non-regulation.

The new Farm Bill should emphasize the

locally led process in developing how the resources

are treated and the programs are administered, and

the program driven \-- programs for farm programs.

The other thing is not to forget, as

mentioned before, that we do have a real connection

to urban and rural. We need to maintain urban

offices within NRCS staff because of the technical

assistance available to work basically with the head

of watersheds in many cases so that we can take care

of the issues if they go downstream that can impact

agriculture.

Last item is a housekeeping for my

association meeting. After this meeting we adjourn

and move down the hall at 11:00 for our regular

association meeting and lunch and then a tour in the

afternoon. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Chris.

Good morning.

MR. LARRY BURTON: Good morning. Under

Secretary Rey, thank you very much for coming. My

name is Larry Burton. I live in Reno, and I am the

program administrator for the Solar Generations

Rebate Program for Sierra Pacific Power Company and

also Nevada Power.

Solar Generations is a state funded rebate

program that encourages customers of Nevada Power

and Sierra Pacific to participate and put in solar

portable tanks systems. We are now working with the

USDA here in the state to try to bring portable

energy and specifically portable tanks to rural

Nevada.

We think the combination of the USDA grant

programs in combination with the rebate programs and

also the federal tax incentives provided by the

federal tax bill provides a substantial financial

package for rural Nevada farmers, ranchers, and

communities to look at new and renewable energy.

Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific are also

trying to work with the PUC to bring other programs

for geothermal and wind production to rural Nevada,

and we hope to do that in the next couple of years.

So I\'d like to just encourage that the new

Farm Bill increase funding for renewables. You have

heard today that several people are concerned with

the high price of fuels. Energy is also a big

important factor for rural communities and also

farmers, ranchers doing renewable energy projects in

this state. It\'s a great state for renewable energy.

The potential for geothermal in Northern Nevada is

huge. The potential for wind generation is huge in

this state and also with solar.

So I\'d like to encourage additional funding

for that in the 2007 Farm Bill. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Well put, Larry. With 212 days

of sunlight, wind all the time, and plenty of

geothermal, we\'ve got a lot of great resources out

there.

Any other comments this morning for Mr. Rey

regarding the Farm Bill? Because if you don\'t have

one, I know Mr. Henderson has something that he\'d

like to follow up on.

Oh, good. Go on. Good morning.

MR. JOE SICKING: I\'m Joe Sicking with

Paradise- Sonoma Conservation District, and I would

like to see the CSP program put back to the way it

came out of Congress, and it\'s going to be a vehicle

to assist farmers. I think with the global economy,

we are going to lose \-- a lot of the commodity

programs are going to be downsized to \-- from the

global markets. We think that the CSP program would

be a good vehicle to help and assist farmers.

Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thanks, Chuck.

Your twin brother was just here.

MR. McGOWAN: Everybody\'s wishing he\'d go

home too. Kelly McGowan, Nevada Division of

Conservation Districts.

One of the things that has come up across

the nation as I participate in the National

Association of State Conservation Agencies as well

is the issue of block grants within the Farm Bill,

and we\'re hopeful that USDA will consider in the 2007

Farm Bill block grants made available to

conservation districts would be a specific way in

which USDA could directly enhance natural resource

conservation and technical assistance to clients

utilizing both Farm Bill programs and participating

in programs specific to conservation districts.

Thanks.

MODERATOR: Great. Thanks for that good

comment. Now, Kelly has been up there twice if

somebody has thought of something they\'d like to say.

This is kind of like going to see Santa

Claus. Once you get off his lap, he\'s gone to the

North Pole. This is our chance.

Okay. You don\'t mind, Mr. Henderson,

you\'ve got \-- You\'ve taken this all in. Don is the

director of the Department of Ag. You can go to the

podium. It\'s official.

MR. DON HENDERSON: For our recordkeeper,

Don Henderson with the Nevada Department of

Agriculture. Thank you for all your comments.

There\'s quite a few people who did not speak here

this morning, and because of that I have a whole list

of things that I get to say. So we are going to

penalize you to a certain extent.

Let me try to run through briefly some of

my notes and then what I picked up on, development

council funding is important. I found out that Lacey

would make a great speech writer. I\'ve been looking

for a good speech writer. So look me up when you get

out of school.

Forestry came up as an issue, which

probably may surprise the Under Secretary before. We

do have forestry in Nevada, and it\'s an important

program. It\'s probably not what\'s viewed in other

regions of the nation as a forestry program, but we

do have forestry and rangeland issues that are tied

together and need to be supported.

Noxious weeds was mentioned as a priority,

and increased access to conservation districts to

funding through the Farm Bill was mentioned.

We have, I believe, 28 conservation

districts across the state, and there is right \-- the

resources that they help assist and conserve are so

wide and divergent, all the way from Lake Tahoe to

the Moapa Valley. I think a lot of those comments

came in.

The issue of assistance programs for

alfalfa production, that is a real issue that we\'ve

struggled with for years in Nevada where the Farm

Bill is focused on commodities and many of our crops

are not commodity based. That needs to be realized.

Fuel costs, transportation costs, it\'s

ironic for years, we\'ve been looking for the perfect

environmental conditions and prices, we get a good

boost in the agriculture and we put it together this

past year or two in terms of high livestock prices

and good foliage years. What comes along, high

energy cost that reduces that margin of profit.

Alternative energy was discussed, and

that\'s important, alternative energy sources,

bioenergy resources is an important opportunity for

Nevada, and something we should be looking at with

this status of our energy policy within the nation.

Marginal railroads and transportation of

agricultural products and the need for states to get

together to try to unify transportation requirements,

very valid points.

Block grants to CDs was mentioned. We\'ve

heard from several individuals from the Native

American population and some of the challenges that

they face, and we need to pay increased attention

to.

RC&Ds was mentioned as an important

program. Need to revisit some of the field office

locations, wild land, urban interface issues,

defining sustainability. That\'s going to be tricky

as you move across the United States and across the

resources. Solar power.

Those are some of the things that I was

noticing the Under Secretary taking his notes, and he

has a little bit better \-- he\'s a better notetaker

than I am. So I\'m sure with the transcription here

that your thoughts will be captured.

I had a couple of things that some of them

are marginal to issues that were brought up here

today and some are some new thoughts that I\'d like to

just throw out there while I have a chance and the

Under Secretary\'s ear.

Homeland security is an issue that has come

to the forefront and is on everyone\'s mind, and

there\'s been a lot of funding thrown out to help

local governments, state governments and federal

agencies to address homeland security issues.

The one thing that I see missing, and we\'ve

been looking for is the education of our farmers and

ranchers on homeland security issues, bioterrorism

threats, and what steps can they take to reduce these

threats.

We all recognize that bioterrorism and

agriculture, that\'s an important issue, but I have

not seen any funding sources come down through

homeland security to educate our producers on what

steps they can take to protect and reduce

bioterrorism on our lands. We have been looking for

them also. So that\'s one comment that perhaps maybe

the Farm Bill or some other bill might be able to

address.

I focused on today and I think our comments

today that agricultural systems, challenges and

opportunities vary across this nation. As such, it\'s

very difficult, if not impossible, to design a

national agriculture assistance or conservation

program that meets the needs of ranchers and farmers

in every region of the nation. It\'s primarily due \--

this reality is due primarily to the unique nature of

agriculture in Nevada, that enrollment numbers in

USDA programs are low in Nevada.

The Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance

program, or NAP, is a step in the right direction for

addressing some of the issues. That program needs to

be expanded to include livestock. The Livestock

Assistance Program offered to ranchers five or six

years ago here in Nevada when we were experiencing

some heavy droughts and wildlife losses were

extremely popular and successful for those producers

that were eligible. For numerous reasons, the

Emergency Ag. Loans Programs are not practical and

widely utilized by Nevada producers.

For these reasons, and along with what

Kelly McGowan said earlier, the Nevada Department of

Agriculture joins with our counterparts through the

National Association of State Departments of

Agriculture by calling for a new approach to address

agricultural conservation, environmental priorities,

and emergency assistance through state partnerships.

What is currently called the Agricultural Stewardship

Program would be a block grant initiative where the

USDA would provide a grant to state departments of

agriculture or conservation districts to achieve a

specific end and to provide specific services to the

local producers. To be successful and meaningful,

there should be little to no strings attached to

these grants on how the respective state agency

achieves the intended results. It\'s the results that

are meaningful, not how we get there.

A good example on how this program can work

and be successful was the specialty crop block grant

program that was funded four years ago. The 2001

specialty crops block grant provided about \$160

million in grants to state departments of

agriculture. The states went to producers, and from

them, they made a \-- from the advice gained from

producers on what the opportunities were made

investments in more than 1,400 projects across the

nation from significant issues, including marketing,

agricultural marketing, education, research, pest and

disease programs and food safety. This program also

leveraged matching funds of about \$45 million from

state and individual grant recipients.

I can assure you that the \$660,000 that was

received in Nevada through this program was well

spent and spread about as far as you could spread

that amount of money. It funded over 35 divergent

projects ranging from the development of market

feasibility studies to pilot production trials with

wine and grapes and native seed to producing producer

conferences on marketing and export requirements and

farm diversification. Several of the grant

recipients from this successful program are in this

room today.

We applaud recent efforts to fund this

program for a second time through the passage of the

most recent ag appropriation bill and strongly urge

continued funding of this program through the Farm

Bill. These types of innovative programs are

critical to the future advancement and growth of

agriculture in Nevada.

On the issue of invasive species and weeds,

this Farm Bill raises a golden opportunity to address

the need for clear and workable state and federal

cooperative program for detecting and eradicating

foreign pests and weeds. These pests arrive on

global trade, are not caused by the states that are

increasingly being asked to shoulder the

responsibility to detect and eradicate. Recent

incidents have raised this issue to the level of

inclusion in the Farm Bill.

Also, the Invasive Species Initiative,

which was developed under the Clinton Administration,

have not been funded to assist states with the

numerous threats posed by invasive weeds. This is an

important issue in Nevada where the window allowing

for the control and eradication of numerous invasive

weed species is rapidly closing.

With the extensive holdings of land in

Nevada by the federal government, substantially

increased funding to federal agencies is needed to

control weeds species on federal property, while the

recommendations from the President\'s Invasive Species

Council should be implemented to provide federal

funding to states to supplement local efforts to

detect, control and eradicate week species.

Failure to act substantially on this issue

in the upcoming Farm Bill will greatly impact

Nevada\'s natural resources, wildlife habitats,

agricultural productivity, and quality of life for

all Nevadans.

The USDA Ag Mediation Program is another

important program here in Nevada. This is a program

where states with certified mediation programs

provide mediation for USDA agencies and their

customers where there has been an adverse agency

decision issue. This has been a very successful

program in Nevada where we pioneered the mediation of

contested Forest Service grazing decisions and

prevented several administrative appeals. Funding

levels for this program have not kept up with the

growth of this program even though this program saves

the federal government money through the reduction of

costly administrative appeals.

When Nevada first started the program in

1996, there was a \$35,000 federal assistance grant to

the state to administer and deliver this mediation

program.

Due to the addition of other states into

this program and static funding levels, the level of

funding received by Nevada this last year was only

\$8,500.

With 35 states now delivering this

worthwhile cost effective program, national funding

levels need to be increased to about \$5 to \$6 million

if it is to remain a viable USDA initiative.

One other point that has been touched on in

the testimony at this forum is the \-- and that I\'d

like to focus on briefly \-- is that there is a need

to fund and make adjustments within the NRCS to get

the \"Service\" put back into NRCS.

The technical expertise provided by this

agency is critical to the future advancement of

agriculture on both public and private lands in

Nevada. This is a tremendous resource that has made

a big difference in Nevada, and we need to focus on

it in the future.

Speaking for Nevada, we need the NCRS staff

back in the field working with individual ranchers

and farmers and Indian producers to bring about

improved conservation and advancement of

agriculture.

Couple of other points \-- aren\'t you sorry

you didn\'t have more comments \-- a couple of other

points. Kind of transcends the Farm Bill, but since

we have the Under Secretary here, I\'d like to take

this opportunity to make some general observations on

needs relating to national forest system lands.

First, over the past decade or two, we\'ve

learned that custodial management of our vast natural

resources is insufficient to keep these lands in a

healthy and productive condition. Rather we need

aggressive and proactive management of these

resources to keep them in a condition where they can

be enjoyed by future generations.

Recognizing this reality, priorities for

increased funding for the Humboldt-Toiyabe National

Forest center around improved and proactive

vegetation management, including invasive weed

control, pinyon-juniper encroachment, fuels

management, and habitat and reparian improvement.

An initiative that I would consider a

failure that I\'d like to bring on and touch on focus

on the advancements that are being made was the

command and control mechanisms put in place in the

late 1980s through the \"Change on the Range\"

Initiative where standards and guidelines were

inserted into Forest Service grazing permits and

became the sole determinants for permit

administration.

Under this concept, if the annual grazing

results did not fully meet these imposed standards,

the involved rancher was penalized into submission

or eventually lost the grazing permit.

The point I\'d like to make in this regard

is that there are plenty of challenges ahead of us in

successful management of our national forests and

public lands. It\'s a big job, and the Forest Service

should be out seeking assistance from the public and

private industry if they hope to get a handle on this

challenge.

One of the best and most cost effective

tools that the Forest Service has in its arsenal in

meeting the vegetation management challenges it faces

is the permitted livestock grazing program. The

command and control approach imposed by grazing

standards provided little incentive, in fact, it was

a disincentive, for ranchers to work cooperatively

and in a partnership with the Forest Service on these

forest health and rangeland health issues.

Producers were hunkered down fighting to keep their

Forest Service grazing permits and maintaining their

livelihoods.

But recently we are picking up signs that

change on the range is appearing again, where the

Forest Service is moving to implement adaptive

grazing management. Where consensus grazing

objectives are developed, grazing is designed and

implemented to achieve those objectives, and

cooperative monitoring is used to determine if the

long-term vegetation objectives are being achieved

through the implemented grazing.

The collaborative and cooperative approach,

this collaborative and cooperative approach, is being

pioneered in the Humboldt-Toiyabe Forest through the

Martin Basin rangeland project EIS. I ask for the

Under Secretary\'s support for this positive and

collaborative approach to the administration of

livestock grazing on National Forest System lands.

With that diatribe, I would like to thank

each participate that came here today for your

comments. Feel free to, as we move through the Farm

Bill, which will be a couple-year process, to include

your input. My office is open, and quite frankly, my

office is openly trying to develop some consensus in

opinions that we could take forward as Nevadans for

the Farm Bill. So feel free to contact my office.

Feel free to contact the USDA directly.

If you don\'t give your opinion, it

certainly won\'t be considered. So please, be active

in this process. Just come up with good ideas.

Let\'s think outside of the box how we can do things

better and more cost effectively.

With that, I\'d like to again thank the

Under Secretary for being here. I hope that the

comments that you\'ve heard will help you in your big

job of trying to come up with a Farm Bill designed to

move agriculture ahead.

(Applause)

MODERATOR: Did that thought process spawn

any more comments before we come to the conclusion of

this forum? Anything anyone else would like to say

in public forum to Mr. Rey or your fellow

conservation districts and producers?

Okay. Then I\'m going to pass the

microphone to Mr. Rey for a closing comment.

Mr. Rey.

MR. MARK REY: Thanks very much. And

thank all of you for participating here today and for

the comments that you provided us. I will take these

back and visit with the Secretary with my fellow

under secretaries as we do most every Monday morning

to reflect on what we\'ve heard in the respective

Farm Bill forums that we each held. I have got five

good pages of notes to work from when I get back

there.

One of the things that we have declined to

do as we have been undertaking these Farm Bill forums

is to start to speak to what we think the next Farm

Bill should look like. The reason we\'ve declined to

do that is we think in fairness we\'d like to make

sure we get through this round of listening sessions

here from all parts of the country and then start to

reflect on what we think that input needs, where we

should go from here.

But I can tell you a few of things that we

are hearing around the country to give you a sense of

what your peers, your friends, and your distant

neighbors in other states are saying.

One of the things that strikes me is that,

notwithstanding the diversity in American

agriculture, and I think I have heard from as a

diverse a range of states as possible because I\'ve

held the Farm Bill forum in Alaska and then two weeks

later held the one in Rhode Island. So from purely a

size perspective, I\'ve covered the full gamut, our

largest state to our smallest large. Interestingly,

those were the only two states where I heard about

aqua culture and fish farming, although I know that

there are other states where we heard about that as

well, just not ones that I was at.

But notwithstanding that diversity, there

are a couple of key things that we are hearing to a

greater or lesser degree that seem to be unifying

themes that we\'re hearing in most every state.

The first of those is a concern of over the

fragmentation and development of rural landscapes,

farm, ranch, and forest lands. And that\'s a large

problem and a serious concern in states as small and

as urbanized as Rhode Island and as large and rural

as Nevada. It is something that the 2002 Farm Bill

did address through the increase in emphasis on

programs that already existed at the time that the

Farm and Ranchland Protection Program as well as

creating new programs like the Grassland Reserve

Program to provide landowners incentives to avoid the

movement towards development and subdivision.

So I think while our efforts in the 2007

Farm Bill are very substantial food around the

country, what we\'re hearing on a fairly consistent

basis as we undertake this series of listening

sessions is that people feel that much more needs to

be done and that the fragmentation of rural

landscapes is indeed a serious concern at the heart

of the future of American agriculture.

The second thing we\'ve heard a lot about in

a lot of different ways, but in almost every state,

questions of agricultural trade and the importance

of free trade and fair trade to the future of

American agriculture.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, today

27 percent of on-farm receipts are generated as a

result of foreign trade. That is going to continue

as we have been enjoying over the last couple of

years record levels of agricultural exports, and that

is good news. That is a positive indication of an

opportunity that exists out there for American

agriculture.

But it\'s an opportunity that we cannot fail

to realize because there is another statistic that to

me encapsulates the challenge that lies at the heart

of the future American agriculture, and that

statistic is that our rate of consumption of

agricultural products domestically is increasing at

half the rate of our production.

So unless we all are going to commit to one

another that we are going to start tomorrow eating

twice as much as we have been, it becomes inarguable

that we need to be able to develop, exploit, and

penetrate foreign markets in order to take advantage

of the productivity increases that together we have

been able to achieve over the last couple of decades.

In the ongoing trade negotiations that are

under way today, there were three issues that

generally need to be addressed.

One is domestic price supports for crops

produced within each country.

The second are export subsidies in

countries to provide to assist their producers in

marketing abroad.

And the third are barriers to entry within

a country for foreign agricultural products.

Last month, Secretary Johanns and the

President put a very aggressive proposal on the table

to deal with the question of crops and price supports

for agricultural commodities. They put that offer on

the table with the expectation that it would be met

with an equally aggressive and forward leading offer

from our trading partners, particularly European

union countries to reduce significantly or eliminate

barriers to the entry of American agricultural

products into their countries.

Those negotiations are still ongoing, and I

suspect that we will hear something perhaps as soon

as the end of this week as to whether our trading

partners are willing to make the same kind of bold

commitments to free and fair trade worldwide that

we\'ve already articulated.

If they do, then I think we can move the

ball considerably forward in recognizing what the

future of American agriculture has to involve, which

is the greater movement of American products into the

global marketplace.

If we don\'t, then there will still be

challenges for us in the future to keep on trying,

but we are committed to trying to realize the return

on the investment that we made in increased

productivity.

A third thing that we have heard around the

country, less here today than other places, and that

may be because here in Nevada you\'re experiencing

such a rapid rate of growth, that it\'s cloaking a

lot of other problems that may be less noticeable,

but what we\'re hearing around the country in

virtually every other state is a concern about

whether this Farm Bill, upcoming, the 2007 Farm Bill,

will be a forward looking Farm Bill and whether it

will make USDA\'s and the government\'s programs

programs that assist in bringing new entries into

agriculture, ranging in forestry as the demographics

of our current world populations will need that

influx of new participants in order to keep American

agriculture and range and forestry healthy. The

median age of an American farmer today is about 55

years old, which parenthetically is only a little

older than the median age of an USDA employee. So

we\'re all graying together, I guess.

But what that means is that unless we are

going to continue to see an increase in the amount of

leased land as a percentage of American agriculture

as a whole, currently worth about 40 percent of the

land base in leased categories, which may be about

the upper limit that we can experience.

But at any rate, unless we are going to

reverse that trend, we are going to need to formulate

programs that make it easier, not harder, for new

entries into agriculture. Programs that increase

land values or that inflate land values obviously

have a reserve effect, making it harder for new

entries into the agricultural market.

Conversely, programs that put a damper on

the escalation of land values for speculative

purposes, like development, the Farm and Ranch Land

protection program may have a secondary effect beyond

protecting the working rural landscapes to also

making it possible to transfer those ownerships from

one generation to another by decreasing speculative

value of the land and making it easier for somebody

who wants to get into farming to take over the

estate for that purpose.

But that\'s a third common theme that we\'ve

heard throughout that people have said that they\'d

like the 2007 Farm Bill to recognize.

So those are a few of the common threads

that we\'ve heard whether we\'ve been in Nevada or

Nebraska or Rhode Island or Alaska, states with a

very diverse range of concerns and interests and

landscapes.

We will reflect on all this as we go

forward, and you should begin next year to hear from

us about what we think the next Farm Bill should look

like, and, hopefully, not too soon thereafter

Congress will take up the matter and will be into

the cycle of writing the next chapter in the history

of American agriculture.

Before I wrap up, I would like to address

one issue that was just mentioned about grazing and

the national forests. We come to this issue with a

perspective somewhat, if not very different, than the

perspective of some of our predecessors.

As I look across the intermountain west,

there is no confusion in my mind about what the

single largest environmental challenge facing the

region is. And it\'s not the amount of cows that we

are stocking on federal rangelands. It\'s not the

entry of roadless areas on national forests, or it\'s

not the timber projects that go on our national

forests. It\'s not a number of other things that are

typically in the general mix of issues that are

debated as public land issues are considered.

No, in our judgment the single largest

environmental challenge facing the intermountain west

is the subdivision and development of the relatively

small amount of privately owned rural lands that are

in the path of the rapid growth of the states in the

intermountain region.

The intermountain region is the fastest

growing region in the country and the most heavily

urbanizing region in the country. In the last

census, the five fastest growing states were all

intermountain states starting with Nevada, followed

by Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Colorado, not

necessarily in that order, as I think Colorado may

have been ahead of Idaho.

Most of that growth is not occurring within

the existing metropolitan areas. Rather it\'s

occurring on the urban wild land interface because

that\'s where the developable land is.

In the last two decades, 3.2 million acres

of privately owned forest ranch lands have been

converted to subdivisions or ranchets. During those

same two decades, 8.4 million new homes have been

built in the wild land urban interface. That\'s the

equivalent of using an average household size of four

people per household of moving the current population

of California into the wild land urban interface.

Most of the lands that are being converted

were prior to conversion privately owned ranches or

forest lands. Our central challenge is to keep those

ranches as working ranches and slow the rate of

conversion if we can to help channel that growth so

that it\'s less destructive from an environmental

standpoint.

(Applause)

MR. MARK REY: So we start from the premise

that anything that makes ranching more difficult,

less likely, and, thereby, encourages the rate of

conversion of ranches to subdivisions is a policy

that ought to be looked at with a great degree of

skepticism, if not outright hostility. And that

explains, as much as anything, the change that you

see in the working relationship between the federal

land managing agencies and ranchers over the last

four years.

So I just wanted to point out an underlying

rationale for why that change is occurring and the

importance of it as well.

And with that, I guess it\'s my job to give

you back the microphone, but before I do that, once

again thank you for all of your insights and wish you

all a good day.

(Applause)

MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Rey.

Just from this entire morning, I was thinking in my

mind, this is a lot better than onion inspection I

was going to do in Yerington this morning. It was

especially exciting for me being a planned industry

guy for the Department of Ag to be in the company of

the producers, the conservation people, of course,

USDA personnel. I get to hang with my director

today. It\'s been a wonderful experience for me. I

hope it has been for you as well.

As a native Nevadan, Mr. Rey, I have to

say, from the bottom of my heart and being an aggie

myself, we really appreciate you coming to the state.

We hope you come back. And as it was mentioned, I

had to mention this because it\'s getting close to the

season, as it was mentioned earlier, the majority of

our precipitation is snowfall. We like to ski on it

before we use it out in the fields. So if you\'re

ever inclined, come out and we\'ll show you some good

Sierra skiing.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)