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HEARING TO REVIEW USDA’S INFORMATION 

TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS, 

OVERSIGHT, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 10, 2010

Serial No. 111–43

(

Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture 

agriculture.house.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE 

COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota, Chairman 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania, 

Vice Chairman 

MIKE MCINTYRE, North Carolina 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

JOE BACA, California 

DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

JIM MARSHALL, Georgia 

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South 

Dakota 

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas 

JIM COSTA, California 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

DEBORAH L. HALVORSON, Illinois 

KATHLEEN A. DAHLKEMPER, 

Pennsylvania 

BOBBY BRIGHT, Alabama 

BETSY MARKEY, Colorado 

FRANK KRATOVIL, JR., Maryland 

MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan 

LARRY KISSELL, North Carolina 

JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio 

SCOTT MURPHY, New York 

EARL POMEROY, North Dakota 

TRAVIS W. CHILDERS, Mississippi 

WALT MINNICK, Idaho 

———

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma, Ranking 

Minority Member 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

K. MICHAEL CONAWAY, Texas 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

ADRIAN SMITH, Nebraska 

ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio 

DAVID P. ROE, Tennessee 

BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri 

GLENN THOMPSON, Pennsylvania 

BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

PROFESSIONAL STAFF

ROBERT L. LAREW, Chief of Staff 

ANDREW W. BAKER, Chief Counsel 

APRIL SLAYTON, Communications Director 

NICOLE SCOTT, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS, OVERSIGHT, NUTRITION, AND

FORESTRY

JOE BACA, California, Chairman 

HENRY CUELLAR, Texas 

STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin 

KURT SCHRADER, Oregon 

KATHLEEN A. DAHLKEMPER, 

Pennsylvania 

TRAVIS W. CHILDERS, Mississippi 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska, Ranking 

Minority Member 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CYNTHIA M. LUMMIS, Wyoming 

LISA SHELTON, Subcommittee Staff Director

(II) 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Baca, Hon. Joe, a Representative in Congress from California, opening statement ...................................................................................................................... 1

Fortenberry, Hon. Jeff, a Representative in Congress from Nebraska, opening 

statement .............................................................................................................. 2

Peterson, Hon. Collin C., a Representative in Congress from Minnesota, opening statement ........................................................................................................ 3

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 4

WITNESSES

Smith, Christopher L., Chief Information Officer, Office of the Chief Information Office, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. ...................... 5

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 7

Coppess, Jonathan W., Administrator, Farm Service Agency, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. ........................................................................ 12

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 14

Johnson, Roger, President, National Farmers Union, Washington, D.C. ........... 28

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 29

Mayfield, Mike, National Legislative Chairman, National Association of Farm 

Service Agency Office Employees, Pulaski, TN ................................................. 31

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 33

Turner, Craig, President, National Association of Farmer Elected Committees, 

Matador, TX .......................................................................................................... 35

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36

Craig, Ph.D., William J. ‘‘Will’’, President, National States Geographic Information Council; Associate Director, Center for Urban & Regional Affairs, 

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN ....................................................... 48

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 49

Krosch, Jim, Supervisor, Stevens Soil and Water Conservation District, Morris, MN; on behalf of National Association of Conservation Districts ............. 55

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 56

(1)

HEARING TO REVIEW USDA’S INFORMATION 

TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS, OVERSIGHT, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in Room 

1300 of the Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Joe Baca 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Members present: Representatives Baca, Dahlkemper, Peterson 

(ex officio), Fortenberry, King, and Lummis. 

Staff present: Claiborn Crain, John Konya, Robert L. Larew, 

Merrick Munday, Clark Ogilvie, James Ryder, Lisa Shelton, Anne 

Simmons, April Slayton, Debbie Smith, Brent Blevins, and Sangina 

Wright. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE BACA, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM CALIFORNIA 

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to call to order the hearing of the 

Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, 

and Forestry to review USDA’s information technology systems. 

I will begin with my opening statement and then I will turn it 

over to the Ranking Member to make his opening statement. Then 

I would like to have the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, 

Collin Peterson, ask the first question, and then we will allow the 

witnesses to make their statements. 

Good morning. Thank you all for being here before the Subcommittee as we explore the role information technology plays at 

USDA. 

Today we will study how IT is utilized in many different USDA 

programs. Hopefully, we will be able to determine how IT is making these programs more efficient, more cost-effective, and better 

for the people they serve. Like most of us, I take IT for granted 

until I suddenly don’t have them. For many USDA programs, IT 

is not only a convenience, it is an absolute necessity. 

For example, during the 2008 Farm Bill, food stamps—the actual 

coupons—were made invalid. Now, SNAP participants rely completely on the electronic benefits transfer system. This has helped 

to greatly reduce the negative stigma that many people associated 

with the use of food stamps. 

But this policy change had another purpose, to reduce the rate 

of fraud within SNAP Programs. Unfortunately, with cases of 

2

SNAP benefits traded for cash being reported, the need for this 

type of fraud prevention is still present. We have all read the articles that have reported stories about how recipients and certain 

grocers have defrauded the United States Government, by acting 

like they are buying food products when, in fact, they are not buying those food products, but getting back the cash. And we are paying for that. 

Today’s topic is a very large one that affects all programs and 

agencies within the Department, and within the larger Federal 

Government. Just yesterday, it was reported that a national biometric ID card may be the newest tool to enforce workplace immigration laws. 

Finally, the goals of technology are having a substantial impact 

on the way our government operates. Today, we have many questions we would like to ask. How much of the USDA overall budget 

is put towards IT expenditures and has the Department kept up 

with the changing technology and landscape? Is much of USDA 

technology outdated equipment? Has technology helped make traditional farm programs more easily accessible to rural users? What 

are the Department’s short and long range plans for making improvements to IT systems? 

All of us understand the need to make tough budgetary decisions 

in these difficult economic times. Now, more than ever, the cost-effectiveness of agriculture and nutrition programs is absolutely essential to the future of USDA, so today we will listen and learn 

from two excellent panels of witnesses on the state of technology 

at USDA. I hope the hearing will build an important body of evidence so that we can work together to best meet the needs of 

American farmers and all of our citizens. 

I now yield to the Ranking Member, Congressman Fortenberry, 

for his opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEFF FORTENBERRY, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM NEBRASKA 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be fairly 

brief. 

As you and I are both aware, USDA has been dealing with information technology since before we were both elected to Congress. 

And it is important today that we hear about these efforts, of particularly the Farm Service Agency, but also other agencies in the 

Department, as to how they are addressing ongoing issues with the 

implementation of new hardware and software, and how this actually will affect program delivery. 

The second panel will offer us perspective on the challenges faced 

by farming groups in dealing with the USDA on technical issues. 

We will hear from those employees whose jobs are directly affected 

by these programs on a daily basis, and from witnesses who will 

be offering suggestions about how USDA can better address its 

technological needs in future years and better utilize technology 

from the private sector. 

Technology continues to advance at a dizzying rate, as we are all 

aware. USDA has been somewhat slow to integrate these advancements into existing infrastructure. This has resulted in a number 

of problems in recent years, including inability to access personnel 

3

files and delays in payments for USDA programs to farmers across 

the country. 

Congress has allocated tens of millions of dollars to the USDA 

to upgrade and maintain a reliable system for tracking data for the 

thousands of farmers and ranchers who use these programs. We 

must provide a reliable, secure system so that all of our stakeholders can have confidence in the delivery of our farm bill programs in a timely manner. Without addressing these issues now, 

program delivery may suffer. 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses about their thoughts and suggestions as we consider this 

issue, particularly during the debate on the next farm bill, and I 

want to thank you for holding this hearing. 

And I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Fortenberry, for your 

opening statement. 

At this point, it is going to be a little out of the ordinary process. 

I am going to allow the Chairman of the Agriculture Committee, 

the privilege of asking a question. Hopefully, you can bear in mind 

his question as you make your statements. So I will turn it over 

to Collin Peterson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. COLLIN C. PETERSON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM MINNESOTA 

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you and the 

Ranking Member for your leadership, and I have met with the gentlemen a couple times and, hopefully, I know the challenge they 

have with money. In the past we were off on a track that I think 

didn’t made any sense. I think, at least now, we are on a path that 

will get us to where we need to go, if we can just get the resources 

to make these changes. To have a system where you still have 

COBOL is pretty crazy, but, hopefully, today we will get an update 

on where that is all at. 

I apologize, I have a meeting with the Trade Ambassador and I 

had to accommodate his schedule so I have to step out. I may be 

able to get back. I don’t know if you will still be up there. 

In the farm bill, we have this provision to try to put the prices 

of livestock sales on the Internet in real time on a daily basis, so 

that everybody could have this information at the same time. We 

have issues now swirling around on concentration in the livestock 

industry, and to my judgment, the best thing we can do is to get 

everybody this information so that everyone has it at the same 

time. This is important for the guys that are concerned about the 

big packers, so they know what those prices are. I have heard that 

getting this information, apparently, has bogged down a little bit. 

It was explained to me that it was too complicated, or you don’t 

have resources, so I would like to know where that is at, and how 

you are doing trying to get that pulled together, and if there is anything we can do on the Committee to help you get to where we 

need to be, Mr. Smith, if you could. 

Mr. SMITH. If I could respond, thank you, Chairman Peterson. I 

would like to get back to you in writing on the details on that program, but I see no reason in this day and age why we can’t provide 

that. Certainly, with the technologies if the information is available 

4

to put that out in real-time or near real-time, if there is some reason that we should delay for some amount of time so that it doesn’t 

impact markets in some way. But, I will take that back and I will 

get you an answer very shortly. 

Mr. PETERSON. Have you been working on this yet? 

Mr. SMITH. I specifically have not been and I have not had an 

update on that, so I will go back. 

Mr. PETERSON. Yes, it was in the farm bill, and I had a discussion with some people at the Department who were telling me that 

they thought it was delayed because it was too complicated, but 

this does not need to be complicated. We may have to do something 

with mandatory price reporting to get you the information you 

need. If you can go back and check on where that is at. I really 

think that we need to work together to try to get this set up as 

soon as we can because that is the biggest thing we can do to get 

at this whole competition issue. If the producers out there, the 

smaller producers have all the information, if they know what the 

big packers are paying it solves a lot of these issues that are out 

there. It will answer the question about what is going on, is there 

undo influence, and so forth. If you could check on it and give me 

some kind of a timetable how and when you think you can get it 

done. If you have challenges that you need help from us to get it 

done, let us know that, but I would like to get this going as soon 

as we can. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir, I will do so. 

Mr. PETERSON. All right, thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Peterson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. COLLIN C. PETERSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM MINNESOTA

Thank you, Chairman Baca for calling today’s hearing to review USDA’s information technology systems. We have passed the point at which simply talking about 

upgrades and changes is enough. 

Modernization of information technology systems is an ongoing challenge for 

USDA. In my opinion, without improving the IT systems, it is difficult, if not impossible to move forward with many new initiatives and reforms to existing programs. 

Upgraded IT systems are necessary to allow USDA to streamline service, identify 

and eliminate waste fraud and abuse, and ensure the security of data they collect. 

And, most essentially, these systems will ensure that USDA can effectively deliver 

the programs that support farmers, ranchers and others who participate in USDArun programs. 

In the past, a lot of money has been spent on these systems with little to no results. Fortunately, USDA is implementing a new strategy with new funding to make 

some of the significant changes necessary to deliver current and future farm programs. This time around, we are actually getting somewhere with modernization. 

The MIDAS plan to modernize and stabilize the IT system is a concept that 

USDA has been developing for many years. However, the new Administration’s emphasis on IT at the Department and the more realistic approach to the ongoing and 

dynamic needs of producers lead me to believe that USDA has a realistic plan to 

transition from an internally built and outdated computer system like COBOL to 

a modern and flexible web based system. 

I am looking forward to hearing an update about USDA’s progress on this modernization effort and to learning more about the IT challenges and opportunities facing the Department. Thank you again, Chairman Baca, and I yield back my time.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for asking that question. 

With that, we will begin with our panelists. We would like to 

welcome both our panelists this morning. You will have approxiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
5

mately 5 minutes and we will stick to the 5 minute rule to give 

your opening statements, and then we will proceed with questions 

afterward. We will begin with Mr. Chris Smith, the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Agriculture here in Washington, 

D.C. Mr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER L. SMITH, CHIEF

INFORMATION OFFICER, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF

INFORMATION OFFICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. SMITH. Chairman Baca and Ranking Member Fortenberry, 

thank you very much for the opportunity to share with you our 

progress on using information technology to set a new course for 

USDA to promote a safe, sustainable and nutritious food supply, 

and to ensure that America is a leading player in the fight against 

global hunger, climate change and revitalization of rural communities by expanding economic opportunities. 

USDA is a diverse and complex organization, as you are well 

aware, with more than 100,000 employees throughout 7,000 offices 

in this country and 100 countries around the globe. In Fiscal Year 

2010, we will deliver approximately $180 billion in goods and services through grants, loans and other programs. Those 300 programs, worldwide leveraged an extensive network of Federal, state 

and local cooperators. The infrastructure that supports those offices 

and employees is more than 150,000 desktops and laptops, and 

nearly 10,000 servers. We have five Enterprise Data Centers and 

multiple data rooms that are not up to the standards at this point. 

Working with the Secretary, we have prioritized the necessary 

investments to enable the most effective delivery of critical IT modernization initiatives, and have developed a thoughtful and deliberate approach to implement these improvements. Investments in 

these foundational elements, communications and collaboration 

tools, and mission systems will ensure the security, protection and 

privacy of information collected and the most efficient and effective 

delivery of services to our citizens, producers and industry. While 

we have charged a clear path for modernizing USDA, there are 

challenges that must be met. I am going to hit three of those challenges very quickly. 

We have extremely complex business models when you compare 

what we do within the Department of Agriculture with industry. 

We have a large finance and banking portfolio with a $100 billion 

under active portfolio and rural development loans. Last year, in 

Fiscal Year 2009, we insured 1.7 million policies, over 264 million 

acres. We have 193 million acres of forestland and grassland, as 

well as 1.3 billion in private lands in which we seek to help with 

conservation practices. That means that while we are standardizing and consolidating, there needs to be uniqueness in some of 

those different business models and that is a challenge for us as 

we move forward, but we believe we have the answer to that. 

This is upon an aging infrastructure. I will just take the Service 

Center Agencies between Rural Development and Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Farm Services Agency. In 

the roughly 3,000 offices across the country, we have 2,000 phone 

systems that are over 15 years old. With the average life that we 

6

like to see with our phone systems at 10 years, we are 5 years behind. There are more than 3,000 field office servers with an average life of 7 years, that we want to see a 5 year life, and the list 

goes on and on. My colleague, Jonathan Coppess, will talk about 

some of the specific technology he needs at FSA and I will touch 

on them lightly, also. 

Third, we have fragmented services and highly decentralized security operations. Currently, we have 27 separate e-mail systems, 

multiple data and computing facilities that don’t meet the bare 

minimum for securing our information. Heretofore, for security and 

cybersecurity we have had a policy and compliance-based framework. We need to have an operational framework that takes care 

of this end and secures our information from all threats. 

I have mentioned the challenges. In collaboration with USDA 

agencies, I have laid out a clear vision and comprehensive approach to successfully modernize IT for the Department. This overall IT modernization approach utilizes a disciplined, multi-faceted 

strategy with three areas of focus. I touched on them earlier, 

foundational elements; communications; collaboration and productivity tools; and mission systems. I am going to touch on a few key 

initiatives within each one of those three areas. 

In the foundational elements, progress is being made towards implementing a modern, secure, robust, scalable and highly available 

delivery platform for the entire USDA. A large part of this is our 

cybersecurity effort and with the appropriations given us to in Fiscal Year 2010, we will conduct network security assessments across 

all agencies, procure and deploy the appropriate security tools, and 

establish a security operations center. 

We have a Financial Management Modernization Initiative 

which met initial operating capability which will reduce nine general ledgers down to one and improve reporting and fiscal stewardship. The Optimized Computing Environment is a refresh of the 

Common Computing Environment, replacing those 2,000 phone 

systems, the servers and the other infrastructure I spoke about. 

In the communications, collaboration and productivity area, we 

have a robust approach for collaborative tools. This suite of productivity-enhancing tools supports better interaction among 

workgroups, reduces travel and its associated expenses, and provides for better management of a global workforce. 

Mission systems: My colleague, as I said, is going to talk about 

MIDAS and the farm systems modernization so I will defer to him 

for that. 

And the last mission enabling point I would like to make is we 

have had a long tradition of using geospatial imagery and tools. 

Forest Service uses it for wild land fire management, for recreational activities within forests and national parks, Natural Resources Conservation Service for soil layers and the list goes on 

and on. And one of the most exciting things that I want to talk 

about is the ability, Mr. Chairman, that you spoke about is to use 

these tools for electronic benefits transfer and SNAP benefits to reduce fraud. 

So in closing, I would like to say that we have a very concrete 

plan. We have a comprehensive approach and while we are making 

steady progress, a great deal of work remains to be done. That is 

7

why I am advocating for the continued consolidation of these 

foundational elements, communications, collaboration tools. Thank 

you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER L. SMITH, CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, OFFICE OF THE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Chairman Baca, Ranking Member Fortenberry, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to share with you our progress on using 

information technology (IT) to set a new course for USDA to promote a safe, sustainable, and nutritious food supply and to ensure that America is a leading player in 

the fight against global hunger, climate change, and revitalization of rural communities by expanding economic opportunities. 

USDA programs touch every American and many others around the world. In Fis- cal Year (FY) 2010, USDA estimates that it will provide roughly $180 billion in total 

program benefits including loans, grants and other services through more than 300 

programs worldwide. Over 50 million Americans call rural America home and just 

as we seek to increase economic opportunity and improve the quality of life for all 

rural Americans through key foundational elements such as producing renewable 

energy, developing local and regional food systems, and making better use of Federal programs through regional planning that offer a new future to the next generation.so must USDA invest in the key foundational elements to ensure that the Department can efficiently and effectively deliver its programs. 

Working with the Secretary we have prioritized the necessary investments to enable the most effective delivery of these initiatives and have developed a thoughtful 

and deliberate approach to implement these improvements. We have identified the 

key initiatives upon which USDA will modernize its service offerings to ensure open, 

transparent and collaborative avenues through which USDA employees, farmers, 

ranchers and all citizens can easily access USDA information from wherever they 

may be: the field, the forest, the farm, and their homes. Investments in these 

foundational elements, communications and collaboration tools, and mission systems 

will ensure the security, protection and privacy of information collected and the 

most efficient and effective delivery of services to our citizens, producers and industry. While we have charted a clear path for modernizing USDA there are challenges 

that must be met and be turned into opportunities to excel. 

Information Technology Challenges 

USDA’s information technology challenges are not uncommon to very large, complex organizations with a highly diverse set of missions ranging from financial to 

inspection services. Caused in part by resource constraints or fragmented operations, challenges tend to center around:

• Aging Infrastructure. Managed and operated by the International Technology 

Service, the Common Computing Environment (CCE), is the core information 

technology infrastructure providing end-user support to USDA’s Service Center 

Agencies (SCA). These agencies include the Farm Service Agency, Rural Development, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Many components of 

CCE have not been refreshed since their initial implementation in 2000. For example, 3,000 field office servers, thousands of network routers and switches, 

and the voice communication infrastructure of field offices are over 6 years old 

and have reached the end of their warranty support. These components are 

starting to fail at an increasing rate and are becoming increasingly expensive 

to maintain.

• Fragmented services. Unlike many large organizations where e-mail is managed and operated as an enterprise service, in USDA there are 27 e-mail systems, with each agency or staff office responsible for maintaining its own system and connecting to the departmental hub where routing, e-mail filtering and 

global address lists were maintained. Only the largest USDA agencies are taking advantage of the economies of scale offered by enterprise services. This fragmented approach has hampered USDA’s ability to implement and adopt new 

collaboration technologies that leverage part or the entire e-mail platform to deliver services such as instant and unified messaging (integrated phone and email inbox).

• Highly decentralized security operations. For years, USDA’s enterprise security program has focused on policy and oversight-related activities. Much of 

8

the security monitoring and response beyond the departmental network backbone is handled by agencies and staff offices with a limited set of tools. These 

piecemeal compliance-based frameworks do not offer sufficient protection from 

security threats that have become very sophisticated. A Department-wide enterprise framework that provides defense-in-depth with a common cybersecurity 

tool set is needed to enable a proactive methodology to detect, block, and remediate threats and provide the means to better assess and understand threat patterns and trends to inform actions focused on constantly strengthening our security posture. 

Modernization Overview 

In collaboration with USDA agencies, I have laid out a clear vision and comprehensive approach to successfully modernize the Department. The overall IT modernization approach utilizes a disciplined, multi-faceted strategy with three key 

areas of focus:

• Foundational Elements—Initiatives in this area center on enterprise business services and infrastructure and include Financial Management Modernization Initiative (FMMI), Agriculture Security Operations Center (ASOC), modernization of the Computing Environment, and Enterprise Data Centers (EDC).

• Communications/Collaboration/Productivity—Initiatives in this area focus 

on enterprise communications services to improve collaboration and increase 

productivity and include Next Generation Network (NGN) and Unified Communications (UC).

• Mission Systems—Initiatives in this area center on critical and often related 

program delivery services and include Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of 

Agricultural Services (MIDAS), Web-based Supply Chain Management 

(WBSCM), Public Health Information System (PHIS), and geospatial services.

In some instances, Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) is leading an 

initiative, while in others, OCIO is collaborating with the lead Agency or Staff Office 

to ensure appropriate leadership, governance, enterprise architecture, capital planning, and investment control. 

Foundational Elements 

Progress continues to be realized towards implementing a modern, secure, robust, 

scalable and highly available delivery platform across the entire USDA enterprise. 

Sustaining our efforts toward consolidating and streamlining core foundational services is critical to achieve our modernization objectives. 

The OCIO is aggressively working to improve Information Technology systems security to counter ongoing formalized nation-state and criminal cyber attacks and 

threats. Cyber Security is a long-term critical area of importance to USDA, the Federal Government and our Industry Partners. The OCIO is proactively working with 

all USDA agencies and has partnered with the United States Computer Emergency 

Response Team, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and others to defend against 

this Federal-wide threat. 

The FY 2010 Appropriation for OCIO included funding to commence our 36 month 

plan to improve information technology security. The increase in funding supports 

three initiatives: (1) conduct network security assessments; (2) procure and deploy 

security tools; and (3) establish an Agriculture Security Operations Center (ASOC) 

to monitor and protect USDA’s systems. 

The organizational design of the ASOC is completed and staffing of its critical positions with talented Federal employees is underway. A number of contractor services are helping to support our daily operations while we complete our staffing. The 

ASOC oversees the execution of all the security initiatives and projects, to ensure 

the public that the results of these initiatives and projects are focusing on and successfully addressing the greatest risks to the security of Federal information assets 

entrusted to the care of the Department of Agriculture. 

A key component of our network security operations is to assess the present 

vulnerabilities in Departmental networks and reduce or eliminate their effect. To 

date, we have completed assessments within three agencies and staff offices, including the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). We have begun assessments in other 

agencies and staff offices, including the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), 

and expect to fully complete eleven assessments by the end of the fiscal year. 

In addition to these assessments, we are acquiring and deploying various tools to 

monitor, secure and improve the ‘‘state of health’’ of the USDA IT infrastructure. 

Many agencies and offices have completed the installation of several key tools and 

obtain full benefit from them. For example, our end point security tool installs software on each end-user desktop, laptop and server within USDA. It allows USDA 

9

to examine, report centrally, and, ultimately, manage end-user computers connected 

to our networks. To date we have installed the software on over 70,000 devices. Before the fiscal year ends, we expect all agencies and staff offices to obtain this same 

benefit as they complete their roll-outs. In addition to protecting end-user computers, we are migrating business applications into Enterprise Data Centers. 

OCIO, in collaboration with the SCA, has developed a comprehensive plan designed to modernize the CCE infrastructure to prevent major IT failures and associated agency productivity losses and resultant customer service impacts. This effort 

replaces outdated components of the CCE, many of which have exceeded their expected life cycles. Component refreshment will reduce system vulnerabilities and improve the performance and effectiveness of the shared infrastructure. These improvements will allow the SCA to better serve program participants with a more 

flexible and reliable IT infrastructure. The President’s FY 2011 budget request includes additional funding to allow for the first system-wide refresh of the CCE since 

the infrastructure was implemented in 2000. The CCE revitalization effort will improve system security, reduce the long term cost of infrastructure services, and improve service reliability. 

Implementation of a modern, secure and stable work environment that empowers 

a mobile workforce of more than 35,000 personnel in counties across the nation is 

of critical importance. Such an environment needs to be in place to more efficiently 

and effectively deliver approximately $58 billion in USDA goods and services to 

about 1.7 million farms and more than 50 million Americans in rural areas. 

Under the Enterprise Data Center (EDC) initiative, OCIO is working with USDA 

agencies to migrate business systems from being housed in multiple at-risk agency 

and staff office computer rooms into a limited number of scalable, highly available, 

Departmental Data Centers with disaster recovery capabilities that utilize the latest 

‘‘green’’ infrastructure technologies. EDCs are certified, Department of Justice, Level 

IV Secure facilities that are able to deliver increased efficiency and performance by 

leveraging economies of scale. As systems are migrated, this effort provides improved system availability, enhanced systems management, and better overall cyber 

security as well as the most economic delivery of these services. A number of agencies are already migrated, to include the SCA, while others—to include Food Safety 

and Inspection Service (FSIS) and Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS)—are on 

schedule to complete their EDC migrations by end of calendar year 2010. Additionally, several agencies have migrated over fifty percent of their critical applications. 

These agencies include the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), 

Forest Service (FS), and National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), with full 

migration completion dates currently scheduled for calendar year 2011. 

The FMMI initiative, led by Office of the Chief Financial Officer, will improve financial management performance by efficiently providing USDA with a modern, 

core financial management system that provides maximum support to the mission 

and provides for open, transparent stewardship of public funds. It will serve as the 

finance and accounting software base for the Farm Service Agency’s MIDAS initiative. The initial release of FMMI was implemented by Departmental Management 

staff offices at the beginning of FY 2010. 

These will improve performance, security, and availability of USDA’s mission critical information and assets in day-to-day operations as well as in the event of a disaster. 

Communications/Collaboration/Productivity Modernization 

USDA employees operate in more than 7,000 locations across the country and in 

approximately 100 countries. It is imperative that staff have a robust set of tools 

to be able to seamlessly communicate and collaborate from those locations, from the 

field, or from telework locations. 

OCIO’s Unified Communications initiative provides video teleconferencing, web 

collaboration, instant messaging, e-mail and other services all of which directly enable employee productivity, collaboration, and customer support wherever they operate. Through this program, OCIO is replacing 27 disparate e-mail systems with one 

enterprise system that will enable any employee to directly communicate with the 

more than 100,000 other USDA employees. The Enterprise Messaging System is 

operational with approximately 50,000 active e-mail boxes. Migration of remaining 

agencies is in progress. This suite of productivity-enhancing tools supports better 

interaction among workgroups, reduces travel and its associated expenses, and provides for better management of a global workforce allowing us to better serve Americans and interact in a more open and collaborative manner. This system also will 

reduce costly litigation exposure risk by establishing an effective way for preserving, 

searching, and retrieving e-mails sought in civil discovery. 

10

Under the NGN initiative, OCIO is transitioning its Unified Telecommunications 

Network (UTN) and individual agency networks from the FTS2001 contract to the 

Networx contract. Deployed in 2005, UTN is the USDA enterprise-wide backbone 

providing employees connectivity to the Internet and data centers for all USDA 

agencies. It also provides the contract mechanism for USDA agencies to procure network services such as access circuits, virtual private networks, network monitoring, 

etc. UTN has enabled USDA’s migration from stove-piped network solutions toward 

an enterprise approach that maximizes the collective buying power to realize best 

value in telecommunications services. Since deployment, this investment has 

achieved great success, consistently exceeding initial performance expectations in 

terms of availability, reliability, network security, bandwidth, and in documented 

customer satisfaction. 

The NGN initiative will further consolidate the network infrastructure and begin 

to provide more flexible capacity utilization options to OCIO’s internal USDA customers and provide end to end visibility of our operations (improving performance 

of business applications and overall security). It is consistent with the Department’s 

enterprise architecture goal of replacing multiple, redundant systems and technology components using a coordinated, enterprise-wide approach and is described 

in detail within USDA’s Enterprise Architecture Transition Strategy document. As 

the enterprise-wide telecommunications infrastructure for the Department, the UTN 

is a cornerstone technology enabler of Department-wide efforts such as the USDA 

eGovernment initiatives and the USDA Continuity of Operations (COOP) network. 

The UTN enables such critical public-facing USDA systems as the Farm Loan Program, Public Education Materials (e.g., Food Pyramid, Food Safety), School Lunch 

Program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Forest Service 

Incident Response Dispatch Service (ROSS), etc. USDA envisions increased use of, 

and reliance upon, UTN well into the future. UTN is positioned to support the Presidential priorities for a transparent, participatory and collaborative government. 

Mission Systems Modernization 

Built upon the foundational elements and leveraging our communications and collaboration capabilities, USDA must also provide modern business applications to 

staff and the public we serve. 

As the Committee is aware, the applications and aging technology infrastructure 

upon which the Farm Service Agency’s programs are delivered caused an almost 

complete shutdown of program and service delivery in January 2007. The funding 

Congress provided to ‘‘stabilize’’ and improve this infrastructure and applications 

has been well spent. Portions of these efforts will be useful for a modernized platform upon which the Farm Service Agency will implement the new application 

MIDAS (Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Services). 

Under the MIDAS initiative, FSA will transform delivery of Farm Program benefits into a 21st century business model. FSA has created the MIDAS program to 

meet the needs of its customers and its employees. The objective of MIDAS is to 

streamline FSA business processes and to develop an effective long-term IT system 

and enterprise architecture for farm program delivery. MIDAS will:

• Reengineer business processes to be common and centralize data assets to support all farm programs, eliminate program specific duplication of functionality 

and non-integrated, distributed data that exists between farm program software 

applications;

• Provide capability to meet the increasing demand for customer self-service;

• Remove all of the legislatively mandated farm program delivery software applications from the outdated AS400/S36 computing platform by putting them on 

a web-enabled, common, commercial off-the-shelf business platform; and

• Increase compliance with modern internal control structures and effectively implement improved IT security.

The MIDAS Program Office has actively engaged farm programs to analyze business processes and identified areas where immediate changes could significantly reduce processing time. The Program Office recently awarded the major contract for 

development and implementation of the MIDAS system. The MIDAS system level 

design and proof of concept scheduled to be completed in FY 2011, with the initial 

operating capability of MIDAS to be deployed in FY 2012. 

Under the Web-based Supply Chain Management (WBSCM) initiative, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is the lead in the multi-agency effort to develop 

a modern, integrated, web-based commodity acquisition, distribution, and tracking 

system for food aid both domestically and internationally. Replacing a more than 

26 year old, failure prone, COBOL system, the WBSCM system will transform, 

11

standardize, and streamline the way USDA food aid and domestic food purchases 

are managed end to end—from planning and procurement to ordering, contract 

management and delivery. The WBSCM Program Office is scheduled to start user 

acceptance testing this month. 

The Public Health Information System (PHIS) is an integrated, comprehensive 

system of web-based applications that will provide near real-time collection, reporting, and analysis of food safety data and inspection findings for FSIS. PHIS’ modern 

design will provide the agency the ability to adapt as requirements change and 

evolve. It will replace many of FSIS’ legacy systems and will capture data on the 

findings of FSIS inspection program personnel as they perform their daily tasks (including import and export tasks) and utilize the data to analyze trends, produce 

automated model predictions, and ensure the data’s quality to be comprehensive, 

timely, and reliable for decision-making. In addition, PHIS will collect inspection 

findings, such as humane handling information, entered by FSIS inspection program 

personnel, as well as data streams from the Agency’s domestic and international 

partners. This coordinated effort, made possible through PHIS technology, will improve the agency’s ability to collect, analyze, and communicate data, better predict 

likely outcomes, and improve protection of public health. PHIS will be hosted in 

USDA Enterprise Data Centers for maximum availability and disaster recovery. 

Currently, PHIS is in the design and development phase and technical testing and 

integration began this month. Targeted implementation is expected to begin in the 

fourth quarter of FY 2010. 

USDA is one of the largest producers and consumers of geospatial imagery within 

the Federal Government. One example of this is the National Agriculture Imagery 

Program (NAIP), which provides digital aerial imagery used by USDA and other 

public and private users. Geospatial Information System (GIS) technologies used in 

conjunction with program data provides the capability to improving program decision-making for a variety of important USDA programs. 

For example, GIS technologies are used by tens of thousands of USDA staff, cooperators and approved insurance providers doing day-to-day operations in crop 

compliance, conservation planning, forestry health evaluations, resource assessments and inventory management, assessment and monitoring of crop disease outbreaks, and crop statistical analysis. 

Forest Service (FS) leverages GIS technology to allow scientists to model fire conditions and behavior; managers to plan and carry out fuels reduction programs; incident commanders to respond to and suppress fire, produce tactical fire maps, and 

protect lives and property; and planners assess post fire conditions and prescribe rehabilitation work. Since wildland fires typically span multiple jurisdictions, Forest 

Service geospatial technologies must work in an interoperable fashion with those of 

its partners. 

The Farm Service Agency uses GIS technology to help ensure compliance and 

land record management requirements are met. GIS serves as a critical communication tool for reporting of crops by farmers and ranchers, who can access the NAIP 

images via their USDA Service Center. The imaging ultimately assists FSA staff in 

determining eligibility and planning for conservation and other farm programs. The 

Common Land Unit (CLU) program relies on the NAIP product for maintenance of 

farm and tract records. The CLU and NAIP together provide a foundation for delivering programs consistently within the agency and across the Department with 

NRCS, Forest Service and Risk Management Agency (RMA). Conservation programs 

are increasingly using geospatial data to determine applicant eligibility and contract 

rates and NAIP is vital to this activity. 

The Natural Resources Conservation Service use of GIS technology enables it to 

tailor soils data to meet the needs of many customers dynamically, not just one single product. Over 3,000 counties have digital soil survey information that provide 

a user with information like the type of soil in a location, water holding capacity, 

depth to bedrock, depth to water table and chemical properties which can be 

accessed all from a home computer. 

Rural Development utilizes GIS in the mapping of proposed business and housing 

eligibility areas in rural America. This mapping service allows lenders, applicants, 

and potential applicants to quickly determine whether the area in which they are 

considering purchasing property qualifies for funding from Rural Development. Eligibility maps can be created based on a specific address or on a broader regional 

area, e.g., county, state. RD is exercising the opportunity to improve this service by 

deploying a Google base map which is more widely in use on the internet today. 

This will lead to faster response time and the addition of customer features such 

as accessing satellite and map-satellite hybrid images. RD also uses geospatial data 

to provide Broadband applicants the ability to map proposed service areas in the 

submission of their Broadband loan and/or grant application. 

12

One of many programs where GIS technology can enhance mission delivery is the 

Food and Nutrition Service’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

Methods of detecting (and ultimately preventing) SNAP fraud by electronic benefit 

transaction (EBT) enabled retailers are essential to the successful management of 

the benefit redemption process, which involves over 16 billion transactions annually. 

Traditional methods of fraud were reduced through the use of EBT in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) under the coupon distribution/redemption system. However, the nature of electronic transactions also introduced 

previously unknown approaches to committing fraud. Detecting and significantly reducing fraud by EBT enabled retailers is essential to the successful management of 

the benefit redemption process. To this end, the Food and Nutrition Service developed the Anti-Fraud Locator for EBT Transactions (ALERT) system in 1997. 

The ALERT system has proven to be a critical tool in the FNS’ fight against 

SNAP benefit trafficking, which is the exchange of SNAP benefits for cash. While 

ALERT has been very successful in fighting fraud, FNS is looking for new techniques to improve the system. One approach being evaluated is the use of 

Geospatial Information System (GIS) tools to interpret complex relationships among 

billions of SNAP electronic transaction records that might otherwise be difficult to 

detect. This moves beyond simple location maps showing suspect store locations and 

other stores within an area, and integrates business intelligence and predictive 

analysis features with a geospatial platform to help identify potential retailer fraud 

patterns, trends, behaviors, etc.

My office is now further expanding the capacity of GIS technology tools to build 

sustainable strategic and operational platforms. We have established an Enterprise 

Geospatial Information Office to optimize extensive, but previously uncoordinated, 

USDA agency best practices to deliver consistent, game changing geo-solutions to 

benefit all USDA programs, regardless of size. 

Conclusion 

While we are making steady progress a great deal of work remains to be done. 

This is why I am advocating for the continued consolidation of these foundational 

elements, improved communications and collaboration tools, and taking a deliberate 

and comprehensive approach for mission systems modernization planning within the 

Department to better secure and deliver, at a lower cost, USDA services and programs. Consolidation and protection of our technology assets will optimize use of resources, thereby decreasing operational costs and enabling increasing efficiency, 

while improving overall security. 

USDA must transform and modernize to ensure we meet the demands of the nation, to ensure an economically thriving rural America, conserve our national forests 

and private working lands, promote sustainable agricultural production and biotechnology exports to increase food security, and provide a nutritious diet for all 

Americans. In sum, these initiatives put us on the right path to provide more efficient and effective services and successfully deliver on our mission. 

Chairman Baca, Ranking Member Fortenberry, Members of the Subcommittee, 

this concludes my statement. I will be happy to answer your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. 

Next, we have Jonathan Coppess, the Administrator for the 

Farm Service Agency here in Washington, D.C. You may begin and 

if you can, try to stick to the 5 minutes. You will see the yellow 

light telling you, you have about a minute left. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF JONATHAN W. COPPESS, ADMINISTRATOR, 

FARM SERVICE AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF

AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. COPPESS. Thank you, Chairman Baca and Ranking Member 

Fortenberry. 

I appreciate the opportunity to update you today regarding the 

information technology issues facing the Farm Service Agency. 

Today, I would like to provide an overview of our current setup in 

our efforts towards modernizing, and I will give you a brief overview as well of the National Agriculture Imagery Program and its 

benefits for farmers and ranchers in America. 

13

As you know, FSA delivers conservation, commodity, credit, energy and emergency disaster programs through service centers located in over 2,200 rural counties. Each year, these IT systems 

allow thousands of staff to serve about 1.7 million farmers and 

ranchers nationwide, and process between $15 and $25 billion in 

program payments. 

Also, as you know, FSA relies on some of the oldest systems 

within the Department of Agriculture. While certain systems supporting our Farm Loan Programs have been recently updated, our 

payments for farm programs, including Conservation Reserve Program, Price Support Programs and the 2008 Farm Bill’s Disaster 

Programs, continue to depend on antiquated systems. 

Outdated hardware remains one of our most pressing concerns. 

Our hardware systems are between 10 and 24 years old and, as 

you are aware, the average lifespan of an IT component is 3–5 

years. Our processes suffer as a result, distribution is slower, producers continue to make more trips to county offices and endure 

longer wait times then they would need if our staff were using a 

more modern web-based system. Producers are also limited from 

tracking their participation in program payments online. 

Before briefing you on our plans for modernization, I do want to 

emphasize that we have already seen some successes, namely in 

our implementation of the Farm Loan Programs Delivery System 

and the National Receipts and Receivables System. In Farm Loans 

we have migrated or replaced applications from the dated systems 

with a new package of faster web-based applications, to new processes which have been deployed to date, support a number of improvements and the average processing time for loans has been reduced from 41 days to 25 days. Using these systems allowed us to 

deliver $173 million in Recovery Act Loan Funding in less than 48 

hours. 

Last fall, we implemented the National Receipts and Receivables 

System, another faster web-based application for direct payments 

in the Conservation Reserve Program. While FSA did experience 

initial problems integrating data between our new software and 

our old system which did delay payments for a little while, 99 percent of our payments were made quickly and correctly and we will 

not experience the same integration issues next year. 

As with any modernization, we should expect some roadblocks 

and complications, but I believe we are making the right choices 

by living through those minor problems today to prevent inevitable 

and disastrous issues from rising in the future. The successes I 

mention are independent of FSA’s modernization plan, although all 

process improvements will work together to make a smarter system. 

FSA’s main plan has two parts: stabilization and what we call 

MIDAS, Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems. Stabilization will address two outstanding issues. First, it 

will address the service sales outage in 2006 and 2007 caused by 

unstable web-applications. 

Second, as a necessary building block we need a contingency 

platform to ensure continued service in the event of a major system 

crash. The MIDAS project, which is ongoing, builds off of the stabilization and will integrate the entire portfolio of IT modernizaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
14

tion. The project will replace hardware, centralize data and increase security. In terms of direct service, the project will allow 

producers to self-serve online, although I should be clear, it is not 

an effort to push farmers onto the web or to replace our county office staff or the service they provide. Simply put, this is an effort 

to give our field staff the tools they need to serve and provide the 

best service possible to the farmers and ranchers. 

Finally, I would like to give a brief overview of the idea of the 

scope and benefit of the National Aerial Imagery Program or NAIP, 

the U.S. Government’s sole provider of aerial imaging. Under 

NAIP, FSA produces digital aerial images for use by USDA, other 

governmental agencies and the private sector. In 2009, NAIP produced more than 148,000 digital aerial photographs of more than 

2 million square miles on a budget of $29.9 million; $7.7 million of 

that budget came in partnership funds and FSA used $22.2 million 

of its own salaries and expenses funding to pay for the rest. 

FSA NAIP is vital for ensuring compliance, determining eligibility and planning for conservation in other Farm Programs. 

Farmers and ranchers themselves use the publicly available images 

as a tool for reporting of crops and reviewing acreage. NAIP is used 

by other Federal staff, local governments and the private sector as 

a tool to obtain reliable and accurate aerial imaging information for 

a variety of activities. 

This is an innovative government program whose benefits are 

far-reaching and unique. Without this program, FSA would be 

greatly affected and I am hopeful for the future of NAIP and what 

it can do and how it can benefit American agriculture. 

This concludes my oral statement, Chairman Baca and Ranking 

Member Fortenberry. I welcome any questions you might have. 

Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Coppess follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JONATHAN W. COPPESS, ADMINISTRATOR, FARM SERVICE

AGENCY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Chairman Baca, Ranking Member Fortenberry, and Members of the Subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to update you today regarding information 

technology (IT) issues facing the Farm Service Agency (FSA), as well as the Agency’s ongoing work to modernize IT infrastructure and systems. 

Specifically, I would like to provide an overview of FSA’s current IT systems and 

the challenges they present; outline for you ongoing efforts to modernize FSA’s IT 

systems and related processes; and provide a description of the National Agriculture 

Imagery Program (NAIP) and its uses to FSA. 

Overview of FSA’s IT Infrastructure 

FSA delivers conservation, commodity, credit, energy, and emergency disaster programs. Most of these FSA programs are delivered through a network of state and 

county offices that are located in over 2,200 rural counties. The offices are heavily 

dependent upon FSA IT systems to store, maintain and administer business data 

which is vital to the administration of FSA’s programs. 

FSA’s IT infrastructure provides vital information and capabilities to more than 

approximately 15,000 staff in field offices and our customers. Each year, these systems and supporting processes serve approximately 1.7 million farmers and ranchers nationwide, processing between $15 and $25 billion in program payments and 

loans. FSA’s IT staff manage an extensive portfolio of IT systems and produce an 

average of one new processing application (an instance of software used to deliver 

programs to producers and automate processes for field staff) each week. 

As you know, FSA relies on some of the oldest information technology systems, 

both in terms of hardware and software, within the Department of Agriculture, and 

systems are largely inaccessible to producers via the Internet. While FSA’s system 

15

for delivering Farm Loan Programs has been recently updated and represents a 

major success in modernization, FSA Farm Program payments to producers mandated by the 2008 Farm Bill and other legislation depend upon the continued viability of an antiquated system. 

Outdated hardware remains one of the most pressing concerns. Currently, FSA 

administers IT operations using a computer system known as the AS400. FSA’s vendor contract was awarded in March 2008 with four option periods to provide maintenance support through March 2013. FSA has been informed that the contract cannot 

be extended beyond this date since the human resources are becoming increasingly 

more difficult to retain and find in today’s market. These skill sets are no longer 

taught in universities and the workforce who has them are retiring or moving to 

other skill sets at an increasing rate. 

The AS400 platform supports critical FSA business processes, which are key to 

FSA’s ability to provide payments to producers. At best, based on current modernization efforts, FSA will continue to be dependent on the AS400 through 2013. 

It is essential that these computers remain operational until modernization can be 

completed. In addition to our risk in retaining the necessary software and operating 

system support resources, it is also extremely difficult to find replacement parts for 

these computers that are now more than 10 years old and are no longer being manufactured. 

These FSA hardware systems pose a significant risk of critical failure. While average life spans for IT system components are in the 3–5 year window, depending on 

type, FSA is now running some hardware which has been actively deployed since 

1984 (26 years) with the life extension made possible by the migration to slightly 

newer AS400 systems in 2000 (10 years ago). Thus, FSA hardware is operating well 

beyond End-of-Life (EOL) by any reputable technology standard. 

The inherent disruptions caused by antiquated hardware systems affect producers’ experience with FSA in a variety of ways. Decreased processing capacity results in increased time frames between producer applications for program benefits, 

and the distribution of those benefits. Acreage reporting remains complicated, and 

producers remain limited to doing business in specific local offices. With limited 

web-based services, both FSA staff and producers continue to experience inefficiency 

in the delivery of programs. Producers continue to make more trips to county offices 

and endure longer wait times than they would need if using a more modern, webbased system. Producers are similarly limited from tracking their program participation and program payments online. 

While these legacy systems present major challenges in administering FSA Farm 

Program payments, I am pleased to report that FSA is already moving away from 

dated systems in the delivery of Farm Loan Programs. FSA has invested in, and 

is implementing, the Farm Loan Program Information Delivery System (FLPIDS) to 

modernize and improve the automated systems supporting the delivery of Farm 

Loan Programs. FSA has migrated or replaced applications from the AS400/S36 environment with the initial Direct Loan Servicing web-based application of FLPIDS 

(which represents a portfolio of many applications in various stages of implementation). 

The new and updated automated processes which have deployed to date have supported a number of improvements in the delivery of FSA Farm Loan Programs. The 

average processing time for loans has been reduced from 41 days to 25 days, a reduction of 39 percent from processing time before implementation of FLPIDS began. 

In 2009, improvements as a result of investments in FLPIDS enabled FSA to support rapid delivery of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funded 

Farm Loan Programs for Small and Disadvantaged Farmers. The modernization improvements and rapid updates to the existing software enabled FSA staff to obligate 

$173 million in Direct Operating Loans to small and disadvantaged farmers within 

48 hours of funds apportionment. These improvements in the automation for Farm 

Loan Program delivery also resulted in the timely reporting of ARRA accomplishments and the delivery of web-based reports for informed decisions on loan making 

and loan management. 

Regarding the major IT shortcomings FSA currently faces in delivering non-Farm 

Loan Programs, the Agency is committed to modernizing all aspects of the IT systems and processes. FSA’s modernization plan is a broad approach which includes 

a commitment to centralize data and update systems and processes, in concert with 

a move away from outdated hardware technologies. I believe current FSA efforts to 

modernize aging IT systems, when completed, will work in concert to successfully 

modernize FSA IT systems and ensure the viability of our payment processes moving forward—and I would like to outline that plan for you today. 

16

FSA Modernization Initiatives 

FSA is committed to mitigating the long-term risk inherent to such an outdated 

infrastructure of hardware and software. FSA’s work to modernize the IT infrastructure consists of two broad components. 

The first, termed ‘‘Stabilization,’’ involved securing web-based platform systems 

and putting in place systems which will work in concert with new technology to 

achieve the aforementioned results. The second, the Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems (MIDAS) project, represents the new technology, and 

the processes that will ultimately bring FSA IT up to speed with 21st century IT 

norms. 

Stabilization and Resulting Service Delivery Improvements 

The Stabilization project was initiated in 2007 to address infrastructure problems 

that had adverse impacts on producers’ day-to-day business dealings with FSA in 

a time of unusually high farm reconstitution activity. There were two outstanding 

issues that required action. First, there was an urgent need to immediately respond 

to an unstable web-based environment. Beginning in November 2006, FSA began experiencing service outages for some of its web-based applications that support some 

farm programs. Several FSA business application software systems, operating on 

USDA’s Common Computing Environment (CCE) web farm, began experiencing partial system outages. Problems with application software performance and telecommunications session connectivity continued to escalate through mid-January 

2007. 

Second, as a necessary step towards IT modernization of the FSA program delivery environment, a contingency computing platform was required to provide for sustained business delivery if a catastrophic failure ever occurs on FSA’s aging and obsolete computing platform. 

FSA work on the Stabilization program and the 29 initial Stabilization projects 

were completed in FY 2009. One of the projects, the Enterprise Reporting Performance Capability task, has been closed out in FY 2009; however, in FY 2010 it has 

been re-initiated as a new stand-alone project, Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). 

The EDW’s key objective is to provide a consolidated source for data across the disparate legacy systems. Satisfying this objective will help the FSA improve management visibility across programs and provide local office staff the data necessary to 

better serve producers. 

The Stabilization work has resulted in a lower number of work stoppages, along 

with a significantly lower risk of stoppages occurring in the future. The projects 

completed under the Stabilization project mitigate the risk of catastrophic failure 

before the replacement of aging hardware in FSA. They also set the stage for a 

number of modernization initiatives which I will outline shortly, and ensure the viability of projects under MIDAS. 

It should be noted that in addition to the Stabilization efforts it will be necessary 

to modernize and upgrade the Department’s Common Computing Environment 

(CCE) for the Service Center Agencies (FSA, Rural Development, and the Natural 

Resources Conservation Service). USDA needs to replace outdated components of 

the IT infrastructure, many of which have exceeded their expected life cycles, in 

order to reduce system vulnerabilities to failure and improve the performance and 

effectiveness of the shared infrastructure. These improvements will allow the SCAs 

to better serve program participants with a more flexible and reliable IT infrastructure. It will also allow for the first system-wide refresh of the CCE since the infrastructure was implemented in 2000. In addition, as the components of the CCE are 

replaced, USDA will implement a right-sizing process whereby configuration 

changes will be made to better support the delivery of current and future programs. 

As part of this process, the Department will strive to improve system security, reduce the long term cost of infrastructure services, and improve service reliability. 

Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Systems 

MIDAS targets the IT systems used for FSA farm program delivery, specifically 

the streamlining of FSA business processes and development of a modernized longterm IT system and architecture supporting FSA farm program delivery. MIDAS 

will build from the initial groundwork laid under the Stabilization project. The two 

are not mutually exclusive, and will work in concert to transform FSA’s delivery of 

Farm Program benefits, on behalf of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), into 

a 21st century business model. FSA has created the MIDAS program to meet the 

needs of our customers and employees. The objective of MIDAS is to streamline FSA 

business processes and to develop an effective long-term IT system and enterprise 

architecture for CCC farm program delivery. 

This project will:

17

• Provide capability to meet the increasing demand for customer self-service;

• Remove all of the legislatively mandated farm program delivery software applications from the outdated AS400/S36 computing platform and put them on a 

suitable web-enabled common business platform;

• Engineer common business practices and centralize data assets to support all 

farm programs;

• Eliminate program-specific duplication of functionality and non-integrated data; 

and

• Accomplish increased compliance with modern internal control structures and 

effectively implement improved IT security.

Through MIDAS, FSA has established a program management office to provide 

the capability to acquire, manage, and deploy the MIDAS system. The program 

management office has been staffed with government employees and project management contractors to manage the requirements, system development, and organizational change management needed to implement MIDAS. 

MIDAS has improved business practices by analyzing farm program processes and 

identifying areas where immediate changes could significantly reduce processing 

time; implementation of a small number of these changes has already resulted in 

increased business efficiency for FSA staff. Additionally, FSA has expanded process 

improvement work by forming new integrated teams composed of program business 

analysts, field office users and technical staff to develop detailed requirements for 

the initial MIDAS deployment. 

FSA recently awarded the largest contract for development and implementation 

of the MIDAS system. This contract was initially awarded in December of 2009; 

however, a protest of the contract award was made to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The protest was resolved successfully on February 25, 2010. 

The resolution of this protest will enable detailed project planning to be completed 

during FY 2010, as planned. One major contract remains to be awarded that will 

provide independent technical oversight over the development of the MIDAS system. 

FSA has received and is evaluating proposals for this contract, and expects it to be 

awarded during Spring 2010. These independent technical contractors will review 

the deliverables provided by development teams and will provide MIDAS, FSA and 

the Department with a check and balance mechanism to better ensure that the systems developed meets the farm program requirements and integrate with USA enterprise systems. 

When complete, FSA’s IT transformation will produce an environment that is better, faster, safer and more flexible in supporting FSA program management and information delivery. FSA believes transformation of IT will ultimately equip and empower FSA employees to effectively and efficiently deliver services and support FSA 

programs. 

This transformed and modernized business environment will provide our customers with real-time access to reliable and secure information, and bring about opportunities to perform business transactions when and where they want it. Systems 

will be faster and timely processing of applications will be assured. IT systems will 

be able to provide more quality data at a faster rate, thereby improving service delivery across the board. 

Other IT Modernization Solutions 

While MIDAS is our most pressing IT modernization need, FSA is engaged in several other IT modernization initiatives which are beginning to bear fruit. In particular, at the end of the past crop year, FSA implemented the National Receipts 

and Receivables System (NRRS) in support of the Federal Management Modernization Initiative (FMMI). This effort was designed to minimize improper and inaccurate payments, reduce administrative resources, and speed payments to producers. 

NRRS is a web-based application for managing payments under various FSA programs. This modernization initiative streamlined three previously separate legacy 

system processes allowing more effective disbursement of program payments. The 

implementation provided significant benefits to the producer through more timely 

and accurate payments. In addition, moving applications off the legacy system and 

into the web-based environment lays the foundation for MIDAS to further streamline business processes. 

This initial phase of NRRS fully migrated two FSA programs (Direct and Countercyclical Payments and Conservation Reserve Program) off the outmoded legacy system. The deployment of the web software releases was significant in scope. Initially, 

FSA experienced data integration problems between our new software and our legacy systems in the field. This registered some payments incorrectly and caused the 

18

FSA computers to suspend those payments for correction or validation, delaying 

them being sent to some producers. Some producers also received letters from FSA 

which presented incorrect information. 

FSA staff worked long hours to correct the errors, and payments were ultimately 

delivered to producers. We do not anticipate this problem in future years, although 

the integration problems we experienced do highlight the complicated nature of 

modernization. While we certainly may encounter other challenges in modernizing 

systems, it’s important to understand that these challenges will be relatively small 

when compared to the issues that will arise if FSA continues using outdated systems and processes indefinitely. 

FSA has also been able to successfully deploy and implement new applications 

and services needed to implement the farm bill. These implementations include, for 

example, the Direct and Counter Cyclical Payment programs (DCP), Conservation 

Reserve Program (CRP), Average Crop Revenue election (ACRE) enrollments, Supplemental Revenue Assistance Program (SURE) program payment processing, Milk 

Income Loss Contract (MILC) program, and Dairy Economic Loss Assistance 

(DLAP). In addition, applications have been deployed for the permitted entity, adjusted gross income (AGI), direct attribution, payment limitation, combined producer, and producer eligibility services. 

As just one example of the benefit provided by this modernization of payment programs, FSA automation cut the time taken to process payments on the Tobacco 

Transitional Payments Program (TTPP) from 22 hours in 2009 to 5 hours in 2010; 

and significantly cut down instances of payment issues following automation of the 

payment processes. 

While these projects are separate of Stabilization and the MIDAS project, it is 

crucial to note that without the foundations laid by Stabilization, these improvements in FSA payment processes would not have been feasible. As the MIDAS 

project builds on the initial Stabilization work, a modernized FSA will enable significant software deployments such as these, resulting in time and cost savings moving forward—in addition to the long-term network viability FSA badly needs. 

Overview of the National Aerial Imagery Program 

Finally today, I would like to discuss with you the usefulness of the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) to FSA, USDA and others in the public and private sectors. 

NAIP provides digital aerial imagery to supplement ongoing efforts to utilize Geographic Information System (GIS) technology in administering programs. Since the 

early 1990’s, FSA has used GIS to manage geospatial data and provide a means of 

linking geospatial data with tabular data. Under NAIP, FSA produces and stores 

digital aerial imaging to be used in concert with GIS data in the implementation 

of USDA programs. In addition to its use in FSA programs, NAIP has become the 

de facto base imagery layer for the nation, particularly for rural areas, and is 

praised by public and private users alike. In 2009, the program produced more than 

148,000 digital aerial photographs of more than 2 million square miles of ground 

across the country. Imagery produced under the NAIP holds benefits for FSA, other 

USDA and Federal agencies, and private sector organizations. 

Within FSA, the development of a national database of aerial imaging helps to 

ensure FSA compliance and land record management requirements are met. It 

serves as a critical communication tool for reporting of crops by farmers and ranchers, who can access the images via their USDA Service Center. The imaging ultimately assists FSA staff in determining eligibility and planning for conservation 

and other farm programs. 

NAIP has also proven to be a cost effective means for other Federal and state 

agencies to acquire a digital image base, and has become a de facto standard for 

a number of agencies and organizations at the Federal, state and local level. A number of Federal agencies cost-share in the acquisition of NAIP imagery, including 

USDA’s Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), agencies within the Department of the Interior, as well as state governments. NAIP acquisition and management is coordinated through a number of inter-agency planning bodies led by FSA, and with state governments through the support of FSA 

State GIS Specialists. In partnership with the vendor community, NAIP has allowed 

for technological innovation which has kept costs down, led to improvements in information content and quality and provided for the development of additional uses. 

FSA has seen a substantial increase in the number of programs that rely on the 

use of imagery for delivery since the inception of NAIP. The Common Land Unit 

(CLU) program relies on the NAIP product for maintenance of farm and tract 

records. The CLU and NAIP together provide a foundation for delivering programs 

consistently within the agency and across the Department with NRCS, and the ForVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
19

est Service and are critical to the Congressionally-mandated data reconciliation effort between FSA and the Risk Management Agency (RMA). Conservation programs 

are increasingly using geospatial data to determine applicant eligibility and contract 

rates and NAIP is vital to this activity. 

Because NAIP is acquired in the public domain with no licensing restrictions, 

commercial entities and nonprofit organizations are free to access the imagery and 

add value with a wide range of services in support of the agricultural community 

and society at large. Farmers and ranchers themselves acquire the imagery for analysis of their own lands. 

Given this wide array of customers, it is important to note that NAIP serves as 

the United States Government’s sole provider of digital aerial imaging. In USDA 

alone, NAIP is used by tens of thousands of staff, cooperators and approved insurance providers doing day-to-day operations in crop insurance compliance, conservation planning, forestry health evaluations, resource assessments and inventory management, assessment and monitoring of crop disease outbreaks, and crop statistical 

analysis. Without NAIP, FSA would not be able to perform acreage calculations for 

the delivery of programs nearly as quickly or easily, which would directly affect 

service to tens of thousands of farmers and ranchers. Federal staff in outside Agencies would be without a tool to obtain reliable and accurate aerial imaging for a variety of activities. Farmers and ranchers themselves, who utilize the imaging for 

similar assessment and cropland reporting, would be without a replacement source 

of information. 

NAIP is a strong, well run, and cost effective imagery acquisition program. Each 

year the program is administered according to a rigorous project plan that manages 

and documents planning, acquisition, quality assurance, and product delivery and 

distribution. A comprehensive status and problem-reporting system is in place to 

identify and mitigate problems and risks. A formal program evaluation is held each 

year to review issues, recognize lessons learned, and implement improvements for 

the next year. Imagery provided under NAIP is vital to the efficiency of FSA operations and the good business practices of thousands of farmers and ranchers across 

the country. Without this program, FSA’s customer service would be experience a 

significant negative impact. I am committed to the future of NAIP and excited for 

its benefit to American agriculture, and I believe farmers and ranchers would echo 

that sentiment. 

Conclusion 

FSA works hard every day to deliver vital farm programs across the nation. While 

that effort is hampered by an aging IT infrastructure, I know FSA staff are doing 

everything they can to get the job done, and get it done right. I am happy to see 

the initial benefits of our IT modernization efforts already taking shape, as I have 

outlined for you today. I am excited for what the future holds as the MIDAS project 

is fully implemented; and I am ready to work hard to use important technology such 

as that provided by the NAIP to benefit farmers. 

Chairman Baca, Ranking Member Fortenberry, Members of the Subcommittee, 

this concludes my statement. I will be happy to answer your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you both for your testimony this 

morning and I will begin by asking the first question. Thank you 

very much, Mr. Smith, for your testimony and Jonathan Coppess, 

as well. 

My question is why is the equipment so old and why has it taken 

us so long to begin to do something about it, and where are we 

now? I mean we talked about the telephone equipment and the 10–

24 year old equipment, and yet, we need new technology, new ways 

to communicate, and ways to be cost-effective, too. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir, there are two points, two parts to the question. One, the Common Computing Environment appropriation that 

we received over roughly a 5 year period was used to consolidate 

three Service Center Agencies down from approximately 9,000 offices down to the roughly 3,000 we have today. At that point, we 

did refresh the majority of the infrastructure of those foundational 

elements I spoke of earlier. Unfortunately, that started aging the 

day we put it in and when the CCE appropriation went away from 

the Department, at that point we have about a $60 million annual 

20

bill that we needed to sustain that infrastructure, and refresh servers on a 4 year basis, PCs on a 4 year basis, telephone systems on 

a 10 year basis. So with the infrastructure we have had some success in the agency’s funding. Computer refreshment, that part of 

the portfolio is newer than others. 

The second part that I would add is the technology within the 

Farm Service Agency Program areas is on 1980s-based equipment, 

and that has become very, very dated. The complexity of those programs and moving that to a web-based modernization profile was 

begun through the CCE appropriation, but it was not finished. And 

at this point that is what we are trying to do is to put those programs into a modern consumer-off-the-shelf technology application 

that will more easily allow us to change as programs change and 

legislation changes. 

The CHAIRMAN. What is the timeline to complete this? 

Mr. SMITH. For the Farm Service Agency Modernization, I will 

let Mr. Coppess answer. 

Mr. COPPESS. All right, so the MIDAS project, we are looking at 

a timeframe of funding through 2013, and that final contracting effort is in 2014. One of the big things we are looking at on MIDAS 

is our maintenance contracts end in 2013, and so we have a certain 

definite concern out there of getting ourselves modernized and up 

to speed in time. We are looking at another farm bill coming down 

the line in the near future and we need to be in this more modern 

environment to write the software for complex programs, and be 

able to better deliver on the farm bill that you all write. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, okay, thank you. 

Let me ask another question, Mr. Smith, as you know, the SNAP 

Program uses electronic benefit transfers to variable systems. Can 

you talk about the EBT has improved delivery and has it lessened 

the fraud and abuse? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir, I believe it has made the delivery of SNAP 

benefits very efficient and effective and at almost any store in this 

country that takes EBT, an individual can just pull out a card just 

like a credit card or a debit card and use that to get benefits. It 

has helped in reducing fraud demonstrably because all those transactions can be put into a data store and mined so we can look for 

anomalies that might not be visible to the naked eye. By taking 

those roughly two billion transactions across the 50 states and the 

territories that are in it and the District of Columbia, we can look 

for patterns of misuse, fraud or abuse. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, I know that there is one other question 

that I have for you, Mr. Smith. The Administration has made a 

commitment to roll-out broadband across the country with $2.4 billion funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

Do you have any estimates of what this might mean for increasing 

farmer and rancher participation in USDA programs? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir, I believe that will have an extraordinary impact. One of the things that Mr. Coppess and myself have been 

doing, and we will continue to do, is carry out listening sessions 

with farmers and producers around the country. One of the things 

we hear over and over again is that yes, in cases we want to be 

able to self-serve and look for the information in which we are 

doing business with the USDA, but we don’t have the capability beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
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cause we don’t have a broadband connection. I believe that it will 

have a major impact for individuals across the country to access 

our programs, not to mention the economic engine for the nation: 

for people in some of the farthest parts of the country to sell to others; for creativity and ingenuity; for educational opportunities. I 

think it is going to be a major impact for the nation. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. I know that I have additional 

questions that I would like to submit for the record. 

So I will turn it over to the Ranking Member now for questions. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Smith, I believe you alluded to the system as being fragmented. Before coming to Congress, I had served a term on the city 

council back home. This was in the early days of the advent of the 

Internet. One agency was readying itself to setup its own separate 

website. I was a very strong advocate for centralizing the entire 

city government in one place with sub-branches to the various 

agencies. Now, recognizing there are different service delivery models that may be incompatible in terms of having one platform for 

the delivery of those models, can you point to the ultimate goal in 

terms of solving this fragmentation problem. You talked about how 

we need to move to a web-based system. Is that the core element 

of what you are doing? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir, I mean one, on its face, the cost-effectiveness, the security and the disaster recover capabilities we get out 

of consolidating and then protecting all of our information assets 

in a lesser number of places is huge. I can’t understate that. It 

gives us the flexibility to react when there are problems. It provides the ability to communicate with one voice on all programs 

across USDA. It also allows us to better serve the farmer, the 

rancher, those people in rural America to self-serve those programs. Right now we have fragmentation within some of the systems within the Farm Service Agency. So, a farmer who farms in 

multiple counties cannot have a view into or that employee does 

not have a view into all that farmer’s holdings. So, just from an efficiency standpoint within the Farm Services Agency, it will be 

large. So the last point I would make is a security one that I spoke 

on. We are under a constant threat from cyber criminals and nation states. The entire Federal Government has been facing this 

problem for a number of years, and we must secure the information 

that we have so that there is no misinformation or impact to the 

varying economy, to the privacy information that we hold on behalf 

of those 1.7 million producers, and all those rural Americans who 

do business with us, and third, it is the food supply so it is very 

important to us. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. The second issue is that it would be important, and you just touched upon it, but we are striving for what the 

potential benefit is for increased modernization of the technology, 

less wait times, quicker loan processing. 

Mr. COPPESS. Yes, certainly to add to what Chris was saying and 

to emphasize that when we talk about MIDAS modernization, it is 

more than just the equipment. It is more than just the IT infrastructure. It is an entire way to utilize that to improve our business processes, our paperwork, our handling times, the steps that 

it takes to get from the signup to the payment. So it will certainly 

22

decrease wait times, paperwork and effort on county office staff, on 

farmers and ranchers that come in. So it is a big process that underlying all of that is getting it into this more centralized webbased system that allows better access across counties and for 

farmers across the country. So it is definitely going to help that 

out. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Let me make sure I understood you correctly. 

The major components or the major fixes that will lead to the outcomes that you just named will be complete by 2013? 

Mr. COPPESS. Yes, we are, well, our modernization will probably 

never—we have to continue to keep going on that so that the program, the MIDAS Program is in the 2013–2014 timeframe, so our 

final contracts will go, will wrap up in 2014, is the goal now. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. The Chairman alluded to the fraud, particularly in the SNAP Program. That has been reduced significantly 

from the old food stamp program. I believe the old number was six 

percent fraud and I think that is down. It is perhaps the last number we had if I recall correctly was it has been reduced perhaps by 

as much as 50 percent. Has it been reduced further? Do you have 

a specific number? 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t have that exact number. I would like to get 

that for you and get that to you in writing. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I think that is an important number to have 

out in the public sphere. It is important to talk about, again, in 

terms of the potential in benefit from this very large investment of 

taxpayer dollars. 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I will ask some additional questions 

and then we will wrap it up with this panel and then move on to 

the next panel. 

Chris or Jonathan, do you believe that the CIO is adequately 

funded and staffed to provide the support needed for USDA’s IT 

Modernization Program? This is your pitch, your opportunity. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, we have attempted to be very thoughtful and deliberate about the needs to carry out this modernization effort. As 

we have some of these complex systems coming together, the Financial Systems Modernization, the MIDAS initiative, Web Supply 

Chain Management, Public Health Infrastructure Service, a lot of 

those things I talked about, or were in my testimony, we are on 

track and there are going to be adjustments in course. We are not 

going to be perfect on this, and I think that is one of the mistakes 

we made in the past was not coming up and saying when things 

were not going as well as they should. So I believe we have the resources for the plan we have in place right now. I think one of the 

opportunities for us as we move forward and work together on this 

is that if we can clearly identify the funding stream for a given IT 

initiative, we can be that much more accountable, that much more 

transparent. My organization has put a lot of effort into building 

sophisticated cost models that show the activities where we are 

spending against what projects, and then benchmarking that to industry to ensure that we are getting the best value for the American people day in and day out on these projects. But why I started 

off with some of the challenges, we have real challenges as we go 

23

forward, but we have also got a strong team that we have built. 

Jonathan and myself and those other mission areas are working together hard at this. We have a strong governance structure we put 

in place, so I am confident at this point that the funds that we 

have are right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. 

Let me follow up. Can you describe for the Subcommittee, the 

current staffing level at CIO? Has that expanded the ability for 

data collecting and reports on race, gender, ethnicity? Has broader 

data collection been implemented for all agencies serving farmers? 

Mr. SMITH. The first part of the question for the staff that is 

under my direct control, it is about 1,000 personnel. The bulk of 

them are actually in the field delivering service to the three SCAs 

in other parts of the USDA, so my compliance and policy group is 

roughly 75 and the rest of that is directly in service delivery. 

In reference to the second part of your question, Jonathan do you 

have an answer to that or do we need to go back with a written 

response? 

Mr. COPPESS. I can provide more detail in a written response. 

One thing that I would point out that this is a continuing effort to 

improve across the agency and, of course, the Department. We have 

established a very important partnership and working governance 

structure as Chris mentioned. And one of the struggles we have is 

being able to transition from individuals that have worked for a 

long time on the 15–20 year old technology into 2010 and get new 

skill sets and the capability to run on these web-based systems. I 

think it is going to be a continual work in progress and something 

that we will have to watch, monitor and improve as we go. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. Coppess, since you have taken over as FSA Administrator, 

how many instances have there been of computer issues preventing 

the proper administration of FSA Programs? 

Mr. COPPESS. I could guess at a number of instances, I think the 

most prominent that we have seen is this past fall, some new 

issues we had in making payments in the Direct Payment Program 

and Conservation Reserve Program. And that was really an example of when we talk about there being some rough roads as we renovate our systems and we improve and modernize. You are going 

to be trying to fit the new, and use the old, and you have as we 

go into those centralized web-based applications, we are still 2,200 

offices with these 20+ year old systems in each one and they are 

not connected, and so we are running into some problems. What I 

would like to point out that I was very impressed with is that as 

we ran into payment problems, our IT staff was incredibly responsive, Chris’ staff incredibly responsive in finding these problems, 

isolating them, and chasing down each and every one of them piece 

by piece, and resolving them so that next time we don’t see the 

same problems again. So, it is never, as Chris says, it is never 

going to be a perfect effort, but we have worked incredibly hard in 

chasing down problems where they exist and fixing them as we go, 

and learning from those issues, and just working that back into our 

processes and our efforts. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

24

Mr. Coppess, do you have any figures on the current level of 

fraud or waste in programs the FSA delivers? 

Mr. COPPESS. I do not have those figures with me right now. We 

can look into it. I know we track improper payments and other 

issues but I do not. I have not seen information that indicates a 

high level of fraud in our program payments. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right and then the final question, do you believe that better use of technology could help to cut down the incidence of fraud? 

Mr. COPPESS. I think it is, certainly, that is always something 

that can help. It will more than anything help ensure that we get 

the right payment to the right producer at the right time, and that 

is the main goal. I don’t think we see the fraud necessarily as a 

concern as much as being able to timely and properly deliver our 

program payments. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. 

I will turn it over to Mr. King to ask a question at this point. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank the witnesses and I will start first with Mr. Smith. Can 

a producer access their own files electronically? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Congressman King, to a limited extent, 

yes. We don’t have nearly the amount of information out there that 

we would like to have. There are two programs right now that people can self-serve on, and there is information that they can get if 

they have signed up through our E-authentication to reach it. But, 

a major driver for this modernization effort is to give people information, access to information securely from wherever they may be, 

the farm, the fields, their home or office. 

Mr. KING. It will allow them also to do some filing electronically? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir, that is the full intent. We have been in the 

series of listening sessions, as I said earlier, and we plan to be in 

roughly 15 other states over the next 8 weeks asking farmers just 

that question, ‘‘Do you do home banking? Do you do your insurance 

online? Is that something you would like to get?’’ And I would add 

precision agriculture, in many cases the farmer is more sophisticated than we are in our offices, and so the ability for these GIS 

systems to require back to us acreage reporting, yields and those 

types of things, the possibilities are pretty intriguing to us. 

Mr. KING. I would submit that farmers would be very, very glad 

to be able to access everything they do electronically because then 

they can operate off their own schedule rather than the schedule 

of the office being open. Yet, if they are not technically astute, they 

will become so from a time factor. If they wake up in the middle 

of the night and worry about you guys, they could just get right 

on the computer and resolve at least the filing issues and the informational issues, and do their planning in sequence as it comes to 

their mind rather than when they come to the office. I hope we can 

get there. I have seen the private sector get there very, very quickly. 

What about the NRCS and FSA, are there duplications there 

that can also be eliminated electronically? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe there is a great deal of overlap between the 

programs and the customers are in many cases the same, so yes, 

I believe we have opportunities for streamlining the process. I 

25

mean that is one of the things that Jonathan spoke about a little 

earlier. As we are building out these systems and modernizing, 

sometimes there is a long trail until you get the functionality out 

in the customers’ hand. We have been doing a lot in FSA, and 

NRCS is now doing some of this also around looking at business 

processes. How can we remove steps that are not of value, add to 

that and ease the pain points for our staff and the customer out 

there in the field, so there is a lot of opportunity across both those 

programs with our customers. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

I would turn to Mr. Coppess and if he has another comment to 

add to that I would pause for that and then I have a follow-up 

question. 

Mr. COPPESS. Sure, and one of the important things that Chris 

had mentioned is that here you get these modernizing systems to 

fix some of the businesses processes. Whether it is NRCS or RMA, 

in particular with the Risk Management Agency and all we are 

doing in these Disaster Programs, the ability to communicate not 

just across county offices and not across the state lines but 

amongst the agencies with the information, provide that into these 

more complex programs to have that information in there and, of 

course, we work very closely with NRCS on technical systems. So, 

as we are modernizing and as we get all the systems together, you 

will see better functionality across the agencies. But I do want to 

stress that there is a very important component that we, in our 

county offices and our staff out there, what they provide in helping 

to educate on the programs and go through some of these complex 

steps, and so what we really want out of this modernization effort 

is more flexibility for the farmer. If you want to do acreage reporting or up-ledger your harvest information online, perfect. If you 

have questions about it, we want that county office to be a better 

service center so that when you come in with questions and work 

with that staff, it doesn’t take as long, the answers are there and 

the information is there. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Coppess, and this is a follow-up on 

one thing that caught my attention when Mr. Baca brought it up 

and that is the reporting for race, gender and ethnicity. Do I take 

it that you expect to be able to get moved up technology so that 

can be easily identified and categorized? 

Mr. COPPESS. Yes, I think that, and all information across the 

board as we centralize all of our data and have the ability that you 

don’t have it just fragmented across areas and programs, the ability to pull all personnel and run those reports and have that information would be improved drastically. 

Mr. KING. And then do we actually have that Affirmative Action 

Program that would, let me say, benefit those categories that we 

are discussing? 

Mr. COPPESS. We have the Equal Employment Opportunity absolutely. 

Mr. KING. Distinct from Equal Employment, do we actually, do 

we have a de facto Affirmative Action Program? 

Mr. COPPESS. I am not aware of a de facto Affirmative Action 

Program but we can explore that a little bit further and get you 

maybe a better answer in writing. 

26

Mr. KING. If I could just clarify, as I understand, this goal is to 

keep data on race, gender and ethnicity so that we can assure that 

we are providing equal opportunity which I am emphatically in 

favor of and that is our goal and our mission, as I understand it. 

Mr. COPPESS. That would be one part of it, yes. 

Mr. KING. Thank you very much. I thank both the witnesses and 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. King. 

If I may follow-up on a question that you asked when we were 

talking. When we are looking at a system, do we have systems that 

can talk with one another? Can you please respond to that because 

Mr. King was right on track, and I just wanted to follow-up to 

make sure that we have the system that can dialogue with one another? 

Mr. COPPESS. Well, we certainly that is where we are going. I 

mean that is what we want to be able to do. Do we have all of that 

now? Absolutely not. I think that is some of the things we have 

struggled with in implementing some of the new Disaster Programs 

like SURE, the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Payments program, for example, being able to communicate with the Risk Management Agency on crop insurance and indemnity payments, overall, and Chris may want to touch on this more. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, in two parts, we have been working 

hard to make sure that all programs across USDA can speak together. That is the unified communications approach that I have 

talked about where we are combining down from 27 e-mail systems. And one is not just e-mail, it is chat, instant messaging, webcollaboration, meetings video-teleconferencing and by the end of the 

summer we will have about a thousand endpoints where video-teleconferencing is in place that will enable disaster recovery action so 

the Department of Agriculture has better collaboration and improved productivity. And then, the second part is back to farm programs, for instance, and how that talks to the financial system to 

make sure that we have one set of books and there is one version 

of those books. We have been very deliberate in the planning for 

that and so the FMMI modernization and the MIDAS modernization are, in fact, going to be in the same technology, so it is not 

an interoperability or an integration issue. It is in that enterprise 

resource plan, so again, we are always looking at where there are 

opportunities to do that and then if we don’t choose the same setup 

technologies in our operation is a key driver. We cannot have stovepipes anymore. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. 

I will call on Mr. King for an additional question. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just to come back on 

that and, Mr. Smith, if you have agencies within the Department 

that disagree on what technology that might cause you some problems with the interoperability that you have discussed, are you the 

one then that makes that call or who does make that call? Who has 

the authority, the Department level or the agency level? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir, that authority resides with my office, but we 

do try to be very collaborative as we do this and make sure we understand the unique needs of any business line before we make 

those types of decisions. I think it is extremely important that we 

27

do, from an architectural standpoint, have a solid blueprint to what 

it is that we are building. So on that note, we have actually undertaken a study where for the first time we will have a map of all 

of the technologies by bricks, what we call bricks and patterns. Basically if you think about the blueprint in building a house, the 

bricks and the foundation upon which we build we will hang that 

out. Right now, we have done it in the security and the information 

management area and we will have about seven other areas so that 

we can talk at the technical level and also at the business level. 

I would just add that the approach we are using for MIDAS and 

Farm Services modernization has the business person in the lead 

and lines the technology person up next to them, but the business 

has got to lead this. We have to have the right business process, 

the right measures so we can show exactly what it is that we are 

changing, and bring the technology in line and make it agile 

enough that it can change as programs and law change. 

Mr. KING. I will note that the agencies have noted that statement and they will be very cooperative with you and still make 

their case. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. I appreciate your support, Representative. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. King. 

Next, I will call on the Ranking Member, Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Just one other quick question, gentlemen, before you were going back to the conversation we had a moment ago 

regarding fragmentation. Can you explain the chain of command 

regarding the implementation of the new technologies? 

Mr. SMITH. The authority falls under Clinger-Cohen for capital 

planning, so any investments that are made within the Department of Agriculture should and are supposed to come through the 

Office of the Chief Information Officer. That individual within the 

Department is given that authority and reports to the Assistant 

Secretary for Administration as well as the Secretary. We also have 

some authority that you all have given us for any expenditure over 

$25,000 in information technology investments. We have something 

called an acquisition review process. All of those come through my 

office so we own the oversight of that. I would again say though 

that we do want some of the entrepreneurial spirit close to the 

business lines to get the technology in place that meets the needs 

of the business, so it is a problem. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Of fragmentation and that is why I think I 

agree with you to allow for innovation at the lowest level, but to 

understand how that might be implemented across systems so that 

it is most efficiently utilized is important. So is there a problem 

here with that authority that is something that we may need to 

look at? 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t know that it is a problem but it makes it challenging, and that is with the authority and that alignment. I would 

go back to a statement I made if we have clear lines of funding for 

IT projects it allows us to be that much more accountable and that 

much more transparent. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. So the appropriations makes the policy? 

Mr. SMITH. I wouldn’t go that far but——

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Well, that happens a lot around here but we 

will leave it at that. 

28

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much and that concludes the 

question by those of us here, but there are additional questions 

that we have that we will submit for your responses. I want to 

thank you, Mr. Smith and Mr. Coppess, for coming before us and 

giving us the insight of what needs to be done, what is currently 

being done. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, next we will bring on the next panel. We 

would like to call up panel two. We would like to welcome each of 

these panelists up here. 

Mr. Roger Johnson who is President of the National Farmers 

Union in Washington, D.C.; Mr. Mike Mayfield on behalf of the National Association of Farm Service Agency County Office of Employees from Pulaski, Tennessee; and then Mr. Craig Turner, President of the National Association of Farmer Elected Committees 

from Matador, Texas; Mr. Will Craig, President of the National 

States Geographic Information Council from Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Mr. Jim Krosch on behalf of the National Association 

of Conservation Districts from Morris, Minnesota. We will begin 

with Mr. Johnson. You have about 5 minutes to give your opening 

statement, Mr. Johnson. 

STATEMENT OF ROGER JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

FARMERS UNION, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the 

Committee. 

For the record, my name is Roger Johnson, President of the National Farmers Union, an organization that has been around in this 

country for more than 100 years and represents family farmers and 

ranchers. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on an issue that 

some might see as mundane, but is of extraordinary importance in 

an industry that is always looking to figure out how to do things 

more efficiently and more effectively. Having the right kind of IT 

solutions is very important. Much of what is in my written testimony has already been discussed in some detail by the former 

panel, so with your permission I am going to hit just a couple of 

highlights and then maybe turn to some of the comments that we 

have received from members since our written testimony was 

turned in that are experiencing these issues out in the field. 

We are, in the industry of agriculture, always being asked to do 

more with less. The same thing is true with government and certainly appropriately so. In order to really do a job well, we need 

to have good tools, and as you heard in the earlier panel, we are 

kind of in the dark ages with IT at the USDA. In fact, that is the 

precise language that several of the folks from the field reference 

or used when they described their ability to interact with the 

USDA. 

The USDA has a complex suite of some 30 different program applications based on a distributed technology platform that relies on 

antiquated computer code known as COBOL. Man, that is a long, 

long time ago since I have even heard people talk about COBOL. 

It is a real problem. 

29

There are a number of reports of information now being entered 

manually because the computing system is simply not able to accommodate things. Standard operating procedures are being written on a piecemeal basis. Data transfers between agencies are simply not possible without doing it manually, and so we have a system that is outdated. It is unstable. It is not cost-effective for the 

delivery of Farm Programs. In spite of that, some $3⁄4 billion since 

2002 has been spent on these systems and discretionary spending 

as you all know is always very, very difficult to get and to get applied in a fashion where it can give us the results we want. It is 

an expensive system and it is an outdated system. 

In some states, FSA actually goes to manual procedures. The 

SURE payment, SURE Program is one that was reported by some 

of the folks out in the field, they actually are taking data from 

RMA and manually inputting it into an Excel spreadsheet in order 

to calculate payments, and then in some cases, issuing those checks 

manually, as well. 

Acreage reports are based on the same method that was used in 

the 1960s. The only real difference is that they now get uploaded 

to a computer system. 

GIS, I talk about that on page four of my testimony. There is an 

awful lot of use for programs that would involve GIS and certainly, 

we need to get to the point where farmers can just get on these 

systems and automatically transfer with a touch of a keyboard or 

a PDA or whatever to get not only that information to interact 

back with USDA but also to report and do those sorts of things. 

IT advances by leaps and bounds, the technology itself, but obviously the government is quite a bit behind. We heard words like 

enormous consequences if something happens. We heard words like 

catastrophic failures. We heard people talk about USDA having to 

resort to half-measures in order to implement the 2008 Farm Bill 

because the technical capabilities simply weren’t there. It is not 

only a hardware issue. It is a huge software issue, both of them 

being significantly outdated. 

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I will conclude my testimony, and 

will be pleased to respond to any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ROGER JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL FARMERS UNION, 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Chairman Baca, Ranking Member Fortenberry and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the status of information technology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). My name is 

Roger Johnson and I am President of the National Farmers Union (NFU). NFU is 

a national organization that has represented family farmers and ranchers and rural 

residents for more than 100 years. NFU members understand the critical role modern information technology systems play in the efficient and effective delivery of 

farm programs. 

New technological solutions are available and USDA has been pursuing significant modernization in recent years. Yet, we know that progress has been slow. Advances that could be made in areas such as data storage and sharing, geographical 

information systems (GIS) and reduced service delivery continue to be impeded by 

a system has not adapted to the times. In today’s competitive global marketplace, 

American farmers are being asked to produce more food, fiber and fuel with greater 

precision and efficiency, and they are answering the call by investing in new technological systems. As the primary agency tasked with providing support and assistance to farmers, it is only logical that USDA would do the same. 

30

With advances in web-based technology and geographical information systems, opportunities exist for USDA to realize gains in efficiency and effectiveness by providing producers greater ability for self-service while simultaneously reducing costs, 

paperwork and travel time required to apply for programs and service contracts. Coordinating web-based efforts to provide services to producers will require a new approach, new technology and new ways of managing data. USDA has begun this process, but much work remains to be done. 

Current Status 

The current status of the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) computer systems 

remains unstable and has resulted in service disruption to producers. This is despite 

the fact that Congress has made significant investments in USDA’s Common Computing Environment (CCE). Currently, USDA runs a complex suite of 30 program 

applications based on a distributed technology platform that relies on antiquated 

computer code known as COBOL. Program data is kept on computers at countybased service centers and fed into central mainframe computers to process program 

information. This significantly impedes data sharing across boundaries, whether 

programmatic, geographical or organizational in nature. This IT infrastructure impacts interagency coordination in program delivery, impacts workload balancing and 

reduces capacity for customer service. The system has also proven sluggish to adapt 

to new programs. As the 2008 Farm Bill programs are implemented, field offices 

have often found frustration as systems have not been ready, data transfers between agencies have had to be done manually and standard operating procedures 

have been written piecemeal. 

Producers have reported that the system is slow to respond when legislative 

changes are made. The sign up for 2008 SURE program payments is a good example. Sign up recently began for 2008 SURE payments, but a number of producers 

reported development of the programs designed for them took a long time. This resulted in a sign up window so small that many missed their opportunity to apply. 

Farmers and ranchers struggle to maintain the records and necessary documentation during the lengthy process to develop a working system. 

The current system is outdated, unstable and is not cost-effective in the delivery 

of farm programs. Over the past few years, the system has become unstable several 

times resulting in a near shut down in operations across the country. While temporary solutions have maintained system operations, other failures, perhaps catastrophic, are likely as the system is continually overburdened. Complete failure of 

this struggling system would have enormous consequences for commodity, conservation, crop insurance and disaster program delivery across the nation. 

Funding 

USDA has received significant funding for information technology systems. Con- gress has provided over $700 million since 2002 for the USDA CCE. In addition to 

regular appropriations, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided an 

additional $50 million to maintain and modernize the information and technology 

system. 

The Appropriations Committees have been trying to find a way to pay for the necessary upgrade for several years, but with all of the other demands for discretionary 

spending it has nearly impossible to provide the level of funding needed. 

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has reported that maintenance of 

the existing CCE system is costly because of aging and obsolete machines for which 

replacement parts are neither widely available nor cheap to procure. Creation and 

maintenance of programs is also complicated by the fact that few programmers exist 

with knowledge of the COBOL programming language. As a result, a large portion 

of USDA’s CCE funding has gone to maintaining an increasingly expensive but outdated system. 

MIDAS 

USDA’s current effort underway to update and modernize their aging computer 

system is known as ‘‘Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agriculture Systems,’’ 

or MIDAS. The goal of MIDAS is to provide better service to customers in today’s 

Internet age through web-based technologies. MIDAS holds great promise in significantly modernizing FSA’s technology infrastructure, but managerial and logistical 

issues must be addressed to ensure it is implemented in a smooth and timely manner. 

In 2008, FSA completed a comprehensive organizational review and assessment 

that found MIDAS lacking in the areas of project management, intra-agency coordination, human capital planning and change management. In 2008, the GAO reviewed progress on implementation of MIDAS after USDA’s decision to accelerate 

implementation from a 10 year to a 2 year schedule. GAO found that managerial 

31

and logistical weaknesses existed that made uncertain the delivery of MIDAS within 

acceptable cost schedules and timeframes. 

The GAO report recommended measures for USDA to increase coordination between the Department’s and FSA’s chief information officers to develop specific 

plans for tracking user-reported problems and to clearly define roles. The GAO also 

recommended a full assessment of USDA’s investment in MIDAS including establishing effective and reliable cost estimates and a realistic and reliable implementation schedule. 

Geospatial Data 

In an effort to provide information to a variety of stakeholders, USDA maintains 

a vast database of aerial imagery and other geospatial data. Administration of these 

efforts requires robust data management facilities and procedures, expertise in 

image collection and organization, effective quality assurance measures and the capability of delivering the data in formats that meet customer requirements. 

Updated information technology systems could greatly reduce the delivery time of 

current imagery acquired for use in farm programs. The computer interface with 

geospatial data at the field office level is critical for USDA employees to be able to 

access needed resources. Current deficiencies in the field office computer system 

often make accessing geospatial data slow and cumbersome if not impossible. The 

advanced application of geospatial data in servicing contracts would greatly enhance 

producer use of GIS in precision agriculture. While producers could provide GIS information from their equipment, the information would be lost on a USDA computing system not equipped to handle it. Similarly, geospatial information could also 

be utilized in making disaster assessments and payments were it readily available. 

Closing 

Updating USDA information technology system is a task for which there may be 

no finish line in sight. IT continues to advance by leaps and bounds, and keeping 

up with the latest technologies is a constant and costly challenge across all sectors. 

It is perhaps most acute in the public sector where change is slow and operating 

budgets remain very tight and are receiving greater scrutiny. Much has been done 

in the past decade to position USDA to make the next technological leap. 

We support continued investment in USDA’s IT overhaul. Updating the system 

to 21st century standards will not only improve USDA’s business practices, it will 

also result in better customer service for producers that will ultimately be good for 

American agriculture as it seeks to meet the challenges of providing for a growing 

population. While work still remains to get the job done, we are confident that with 

proper management strategies, adequate resources and proper planning USDA can 

meet the challenge of harnessing information technology in a way that will benefit 

our nation’s farmers and ranchers. 

I thank the Subcommittee for the opportunity to testify today and I look forward 

to your questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson. 

Next, we will have Mike Mayfield. 

STATEMENT OF MIKE MAYFIELD, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE 

CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FARM SERVICE 

AGENCY OFFICE EMPLOYEES, PULASKI, TN 

Mr. MAYFIELD. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Mike Mayfield and I appreciate the opportunity to testify before your Committee today. 

I have been involved in agriculture for my entire life. I am part 

of a fourth-generation farm family and I have been employed by 

the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency for 24 

years as a County Director in Giles County, Tennessee. I am here 

representing the National Association of Farm Service Agency 

County Office Employees, and I am pleased that our President, 

Myron Stroup, from Kansas is also here with me. 

The National Association of Farm Service Agency County Officer 

Employees is an organization that represents the county-level employees of the Farm Service Agency. NASCOE is proud to represent 

85 percent of all county office employees. In anticipation of today’s 

32

hearing, NASCOE surveyed our membership with three pertinent 

questions. 

Is the current IT FSA infrastructure meeting your professional 

needs as an employee? Seventy-six percent said no. 

Have you seen any improvement in the IT infrastructure in the 

last year? Sixty-one percent said no. 

Do the current software applications provide you with the ability 

to timely service producers? Eighty-one percent said no. 

There is a wide range of program needs for each and every individual producer. We have heard here today how important maps 

are and they are our number one function. Unfortunately, this is 

one of our slowest processes taking 2–3 minutes to simply open, 

and another 2–3 minutes to prepare a map. This takes us 5–6 minutes to be prepared to service a producer in the office. 

As we mentioned, 1.7 million participants have to use this program to certify and use maps. If we are conservative and see a 5 

minute ArcMap startup in that production, this has caused a potential loss of productivity of over 146,000 hours. This equates to 

a total loss of productivity of 68 full-time employees and a cost to 

the government of over $4 million. 

The second enrollment program for the DCP and ACRE Programs is probably our second most used function. Again, this is a 

function where we have to use several farm records. If there are 

changes such as acres, owners, addresses, e-mail address changes 

or changes in deposit information, we are required to use four separate log-ins to access the applications to service this one producer. 

A disruption, which still happens on a regular basis, in any one of 

these applications can prevent the office from efficiently handling 

this customer. 

The recent investment in our IT system has made some marked 

improvements and we want to thank you for those improvements. 

As USDA drives toward becoming paperless, the online FSA handbooks are an example of a success story. They make it much 

quicker to search through the 118 regulatory handbooks that are 

required to implement the Federal Farm Programs. 

The DCP and ACRE enrollment software are examples of functional and user-friendly applications. The producers especially like 

that they can sign up farms from other counties, however, these 

applications allow us to enroll these producers and get them back 

in the field where they need to be for their profitability. 

FSA needs your continued support and investment in infrastructure and software development to assure our IT systems are the 

best possible. The largest problem that we have today has already 

been mentioned. It is antiques. FSA offices across America start 

business everyday with a machine and a process that by any definition is considered antiquated. This problem must be solved. 

The current implementation of the SURE Program is no exception. There is no integrated software and the program is being implemented with a complicated, Excel workbook. Large volumes of 

data are being transferred from an interim report and keyed into 

that workbook. This is a perfect situation for overpayments, underpayments and mistakes and the most disheartening consequence 

for the county office employees is the loss of integrity and producer 

trust in our programs. 

33

NASCOE’s motto is Loyalty, Service, Courtesy, and Effort. We 

take our profession very seriously. Many of our employees grew up 

on a farm or a ranch. They still farm or have family members involved in agriculture. These are our friends, family and neighbors. 

We want them to respect our profession and what we contribute to 

our local communities. NASCOE asks that you continue to conduct 

oversight of the Department’s efforts to assure that programs 

passed by the Congress are delivered in a timely manner and effectively. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today. I will 

be glad to take any questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mayfield follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MIKE MAYFIELD, NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, 

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FARM SERVICE AGENCY OFFICE EMPLOYEES, PULASKI, TN 

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Subcommittee, my name is Mike Mayfield. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before your Committee today. I have been involved with agriculture my entire life. I am part of a fourth-generation farm family. 

I have been active in 4–H Club, the Future Farmers of America, the Cattlemen’s 

Association, Tennessee Farm Bureau and my local community. I have a Bachelor 

of Science Degree in Agriculture from the University of Tennessee. I have been an 

employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency for twentyfour years. I am currently the County Director of the Farm Service Agency in Giles 

County, Tennessee. I am here today representing the National Association of Farm 

Service Agency County Office Employees (NASCOE). I am pleased that our national 

President, Mr. Myron Stroup of Kansas, is also here today. 

The National Association of Farm Service Agency County Office Employees is an 

organization that represents the county level employees of the Farm Service Agency 

of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). NASCOE was originally 

chartered in 1959. FSA employees are in contact with virtually every producer in 

the United States, and NASCOE is proud to represent 85% of all county office employees. 

In anticipation of today’s hearing, NASCOE surveyed our membership with three 

pertinent questions:

1. Is the current IT FSA infrastructure meeting your professional needs as an 

employee? 76% said no.

2. Have you seen any improvement in the IT infrastructure in the last year? 

61% said no.

3. Do the current software applications provide you with the ability to timely 

service producers? 81% said no.

In most cases when a producer walks through the door of a local FSA office, the 

employees of the office know them by name. However, even with that level of personal knowledge, the producer’s detailed farm operation information must be 

accessed from our computer operating system. Depending on the reason for the producer’s visit to our office, we will proceed to certain areas of a producer’s farm information. Many times that may be a printout of their farm operation record or a copy 

of a producer’s farm map. It may be to make a payment on a loan or apply for a 

loan. There is a wide range of program needs for each and every individual producer. I would like to discuss two main functions that our offices perform. According 

to reports from throughout the country, the use of maps for numerous reasons from 

irrigation installation, acreage determinations, crop planning, farm subdivision and 

acreage reporting to name a few is the most heavily used office process. We have 

a tremendous tool with ArcMap and our GIS Common land unit layer, and it can 

be an intricate part of a producer’s farming operation. Unfortunately, this is one of 

our slowest processes taking 2–3 minutes to open. Next a search must be made of 

farm records to find the appropriate farm number or numbers, and then printing 

takes 5–6 minutes before the information is available to work with the producer. 

If any one of these software applications is not available or disrupted, the office will 

have to seek out the information manually, or if the server is down, we will not be 

able to provide this information to the customer. The manual process dramatically 

increases the amount of time necessary to perform the service for the farmer or 

rancher. 

34

Enrollment in Direct and Counter Cyclical Program and Average Crop Revenue 

Election was determined to be the second business function widely used. This process is dependent on more interactive software processes to accomplish the enrollment task. First, a printout detailing all of the farms involved in a particular operation is necessary for review. If there are changes such as acres, owners, addresses, 

adding e-mail addresses or changes in deposit information, it could take up to 

FOUR separate log-ins of username and password to access the necessary applications to service this one producer. A disruption, which still happens on a regular 

basis, in any one of these applications can prevent the office from efficiently handling this customer and may even require them to make subsequent visits to the 

office. 

All 1.7 million participants in the DCP and ACRE programs will be required to 

certify and use maps. If we are conservative and assume a 5 minute ArcMAP startup on each map, we have a potential loss of productivity of 146,666.66 hours. This 

equates to a total loss of productivity of 68 full-time employees or a cost to the government of $4.42 million. 

The recent investments in our IT system have made some marked improvements 

and we want to thank you for those improvements. At least, gone are the days such 

as in 2007 when the eastern part of the country could access their computers before 

noon, and the western part of the country had to wait until after lunch. According 

to FSA employees, there are some functional and user-friendly applications that 

have allowed FSA to provide better service to producers. As USDA drives toward 

becoming paperless, the online FSA handbooks are an example of a success story. 

They make it much quicker to search through the 118 regulatory handbooks that 

are required to implement the Federal farm programs. In addition, amending handbooks for policy changes and corrections used to take days. Now that process is instantaneous with the posting of the new amendment on the website. 

The Direct and Countercyclical Program enrollment software and Average Crop 

Revenue Election software are examples of functional and user-friendly software applications. The producers especially like that they can sign up farms from other 

counties. It is nice to be able to access all of a producer’s interests. These applications allow us to quickly enroll producers and get them back in the field where they 

need to be for profitability. The interaction of the DCP and ACRE software with the 

National Payment Service application for 2010 advance payments has work 

seamlessly so far this season. 

The software to perform subsidiary file updates also is a user-friendly application. 

It is easy to move between the actively engaged and conservation compliance updates. The reports are easily attainable and can be adjusted for specific county office 

needs. 

FSA needs your continued commitment to invest in infrastructure and software 

development to assure our IT systems are the best possible. Also, we would like to 

suggest that field-level input be at the forefront of any new software development, 

and those contributors need to be geographically diverse. 

The largest IT problem that faces FSA today—Antiques. FSA offices across America start business everyday with a machine and process that by any definition is 

considered antiquated. For example, in my office we currently have a County Operations Trainee that is preparing to become a county director, and the 26 year-old 

technology that initiate’s our IT start of the day is older than he. This problem must 

be solved before FSA can truly enter the modern Information Technology age. 

I don’t want to dwell today on those IT problems that have faced FSA in the last 

year such as the issuance of 2009 direct payments, CRP payments and the inability 

of our system to read appropriate eligibility flags. I want to concentrate on those 

issues that happened recently, impacting our ability to service the farmers and 

ranchers of this country. 

The 2009 payment problems created numerous overpayments and receivables 

around the country. Producers have begun to request their 2010 advance DCP payments, and these will be offset against those receivables. However, the system is 

so slow that offsets made on February 22, 2010, had not cleared as of March 4, 

2010, effectively eliminating our ability to release the remainder of a producer’s advance payments without them being offset unnecessarily. 

On March 2, 2010, county offices were informed of a national internal processing 

error. County offices were operating blindly not realizing there were producers that 

had not been paid or had problems that needed correcting before they could be paid. 

Also on March 2, 2010, we were told of the challenge of maintaining and operating our old computer systems. This concerns the 3,000 servers that were installed 

in 2002 and ‘‘have long since reached the end of their useful life.’’ This leads to continual connectivity and slow application problems directly impacting the availability 

of our computer systems when your constituents come into our office for service. 

35

On March 3, 2010, county offices were informed that an application deployment 

issue resulted in the unavailability of the National Receipts and Receivables System. For a majority of the day, all processes in this system had to be completed 

manually. 

On March 5, 2010, we were informed that the Direct Loan Making application 

was experiencing performance issues. Customers may not be able to access the DLM 

application or may receive errors in the application. 

These are not abnormal occurrences and only represent a snapshot of what FSA 

employees deal with constantly in an effort to provide service to the American farmer and rancher. 

Last but not least is the current implementation of the SURE program. This is 

one of the most complicated programs we have implemented in years. There is no 

integrated software available, and the program is being implemented with a complicated Excel workbook, still to be updated. Large volumes of data are being transferred from an interim report and keyed into the workbook. This is a perfect situation for overpayments, underpayments and mistakes. The most disheartening consequence for the county office employees is the loss of integrity and producer trust 

in our programs. 

NASCOE’s motto is Loyalty, Service, Courtesy, and Effort. We take our profession 

very seriously. Many of our employees grew up on a farm or ranch, still farm or 

have family members involved in agriculture. These are our friends, family and 

neighbors. We want them to respect our profession and what we contribute to our 

local communities. There are serious issues before this Committee today. NASCOE 

asks that you continue to conduct oversight of the Department’s efforts to assure 

that programs passed by the Congress are delivered in a timely, effective manner. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you today.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayfield. 

Next, we will have Mr. Turner. 

STATEMENT OF CRAIG TURNER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL

ASSOCIATION OF FARMER ELECTED COMMITTEES,

MATADOR, TX 

Mr. TURNER. Good morning, Chairman Baca, Members of the 

Subcommittee. 

My name is Craig Turner. I am President of the National Association of Farmer Elected Committees, also the Chairman of our 

local county committee in Motley County. I farm and ranch in Matador, Texas where we raise cotton, sorghum, wheat, forage, cattle 

and kids. We farm in four separate counties and I also deal with 

four separate FSA agencies. 

NAFEC is very pleased and honored to be asked here and with 

the opportunity to speak. NAFEC is a 45 year-old organization of 

farmers and ranchers that consist of county committee members. 

We help serve with the Secretary of Agriculture in delivering FSA 

Programs. We represent many farmers and ranchers that are nominated to the CoC. Including our advisors, we serve as the eyes and 

ears for the Secretary and this Committee. We do all we can to 

help curb fraud and abuse in farm program delivery. We assist at 

the local level in determining your weather conditions, your farm 

tax and your crop production appropriate agricultural practices. 

There is not a day goes by that our committee members aren’t in 

your local communities answering questions with people inquiring 

about programs and things like that. 

I want to vary off from my written statement just a little and 

talk to you about some items that have been brought to my attention since I presented that. Some of the IT problems: as a producer 

when you receive your checks whether it be your direct payment 

or whatever, the new system, it is very hard, practically impossible 

36

to document where the money comes from to trace it or track it 

back to the FSA serial number. That is one of the major problems. 

Also, them not having the software to take our applications on 

a lot of this stuff, which they will have to take manually, and then 

whenever they get the software be it 2 weeks or 2 months, then 

they have to go back in and reenter the information onto the software. And that is, I mean that is just doubling their time and not 

being very good management of time, and I think that is one of the 

major problems inside our IT. 

And also it seems to be the limit of IT staff to cover the vast 

areas. A lot of times when they have a ticket problem and they 

have presented it, it takes sometimes hours, sometimes days before 

they can get an answer back and, therefore, that is shutting the 

operation down with that particular farmer and causing him to 

have to go and then come back at another date. 

There are also several instances where the new IT equipment arrives in the local offices and it will sit there in boxes for 2–3 

months at a time waiting on personnel to install it. And at the 

same time while it is sitting there being useless, the warranty and 

stuff is going ahead and ticking off on it. 

Not having it all on one system, trying to use the web-based system and the old 36 system as everyone has referred to, you have 

to reenter stuff and use different log-ins and things like that, which 

creates a lot of problems and a lot of wasted time, in my opinion. 

And also not being able to share with you, something that has been 

alluded to that they are working on, not being able to share your 

information inside your USDA agencies. You know, you may all be 

under the same roof, same building, same everything but when you 

need information you still have to get up and go get it instead of 

being able to access it whether you be at the NRCS and need information from the FSA or vice versa. I guess that pretty well sums up my statement other than what 

happened to the Paper Reduction Act? Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Turner follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CRAIG TURNER, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF

FARMER ELECTED COMMITTEES, MATADOR, TX 

Introduction 

Chairman Baca, Ranking Member Fortenberry, and Members of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry, I am 

Craig Turner, President of the National Association of Farmer Elected Committees 

(NAFEC), as well as a farmer and rancher from Matador, Texas. My family raises 

cotton, grain sorghum, wheat, forage, cattle and kids. We farm in four counties and 

work with four separate Farm Service Agency (FSA) county offices. 

NAFEC is pleased and honored to have been extended the invitation and opportunity to appear before this Committee today to discuss issues relating to information technology (IT) as it relates to delivery of FSA programs. 

Overview of the FSA County Committees 

NAFEC is a forty-five year old organization of farmers and ranchers that serve 

the Secretary of Agriculture in delivering many of the FSA programs. We represent 

many farmers and ranchers that are nominated and elected to serve on the County 

Committees (CoC) as well as many of the farmers and ranchers that are appointed 

to represent minority and socially disadvantaged producers and act as advisors to 

the CoC. 

County Committee members, including our advisors, serve as the eyes and ears 

for the Secretary, as well as this Committee, in helping curb fraud and abuse in 

farm program delivery. We know the producers in our county; we help document 

37

the weather conditions during the crop year; and we know the appropriate agricultural practices required in our areas. All of this information is critical in assisting 

in the fair and equitable delivery of farm, conservation and emergency programs in 

every county of the nation. 

County Committee members also assist in outreach to the farmers and ranchers 

in the areas we serve. We take the critical program information we learn in our capacity as members and advisors back to the producers we represent. Any CoC member or advisor will tell you that on any given day, be it at the coffee shop, sale barn, 

implement dealer, high school football game, farm meeting, service club meeting, 

church, grocery store or wherever else we may be, it is very common for farmers 

to ask: ‘‘what is new at FSA; when are the signup deadlines; when will benefits be 

available;’’ and many other crucially important questions that need informed answers. This collateral duty of outreach is especially important for our CoC advisors 

because they often have the ability to do targeted outreach to the minority and socially disadvantaged producers in the area. 

County Committees also assists in approval of applications for most programs (except farm loan programs), as well as reconsiderations and appeals by producers on 

program eligibility, providing local expertise to the Secretary in the delivery of programs. County Committees are also tasked to hire and help supervise the County 

Executive Director (CED), who in turn hires and manages the day-to-day county 

FSA office operations. 

We take all of the aforementioned FSA County Committee responsibilities very seriously, provide our time and expertise and are bound by mandatory confidentiality 

restrictions and a code of conduct—all for about $50 a month. We may not rank up 

there with Roosevelt’s ‘‘Dollar a Year Men,’’ Mr. Chairman, but you would be hard 

pressed to find a better deal for the money anywhere else in today’s government. 

And by the way, that $50 per month is also about what the National Finance Center charges FSA to pay us, a possible side topic for your Committee’s oversight of 

Department operations. 

Program Delivery Overview 

I have in my hand, and have attached to my written testimony, an eight-page 

Fact Sheet from FSA detailing almost fifty programs currently administered by 

FSA. If I had a list of FSA programs from before 1986, it would be much, much 

shorter than the one I hold today because, since passage of the 1985 Farm Bill and 

subsequent farm bills, we have added the majority of the programs on this list. 

CoC members do not have any authority in FSA lending programs, and with the 

exception of a very short window of time immediately following the reorganization 

of the Department of Agriculture in 1995, never have. But we are involved in assisting with the delivery of most other programs on this list. 

More importantly, our local county offices deliver most, if not all, of the programs 

on this list and the proliferation of new and more complex programs administered 

by our county offices has been a mixed blessing. Prior to the mid 1980s, most of 

our programs were directed toward the seven major, strategic, storable crops (keep 

in mind that even soybeans were not a ‘‘program crop’’ until recently) and the programs we had for those major crops were much simpler to understand and deliver. 

There were few, if any, programs for dairy and other livestock, fruit and vegetable, 

aquaculture, biomass or producers of other crops and products. 

In these modern times, FSA’s programs cover a much larger sector of production 

agriculture. These additional programs are critically important to the economic viability of a much larger customer base and that is a very good thing—not only for 

dairy producers, cow-calf operations and conservation minded producers—but also 

for minority producers engaged in the production of highly specialized and high 

value crops very small acreages. These new programs are even more critical to farmers in an area like your home state of California Mr. Chairman, where until recently 

most of your farmers had no programs authorized by Congress to turn to. California’s FSA now serves a very large, diverse customer base that raise a huge array 

of crops and livestock. 

But on the other hand, our county FSA offices have many more programs to deliver to many more producers, many of whom had never been to an FSA office before. Contemporary FSA programs are also much more complex for the farmers to 

understand and for FSA to deliver. 

Using California as an example again, that state’s FSA now delivers services to 

a very large and diverse customer base which raises a huge array of crops and livestock with an organization of people, offices and infrastructure, based on delivering 

programs to only producers of those seven major crops of the legacy farm programs. 

California’s FSA customer base may be three to four times what it was just a decade 

ago, and the number of programs they are delivering has grown three to five fold—

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they are doing the job with only 30 county offices and less than 200 employees statewide, including the state office. They are to be commended, but more importantly, 

they deserve a modern system to deliver our modern programs. 

Information Technology and its Relation to Program Delivery 

The challenge of delivering this multitude of highly complex programs to a much 

larger customer base has been, and continues to be, exacerbated with an ever-declining FSA workforce and an ever-shrinking number of county offices. FSA has, 

therefore, been forced to rely much more heavily on IT in an attempt to fill the service gap. Unfortunately, much of FSA’s current IT structure is archaic and fragile. 

We fear that we are uncomfortably close to a total IT meltdown and that service 

to farmers by the FSA is in a perilous situation. 

In December of 2008, NAFEC submitted the following statement to PresidentElect Obama’s Presidential Transition Team—‘‘Since farm programs continue to become more bureaucratic and complicated with each new farm bill, there should be 

no more closings of county Farm Service Agency offices, no reductions in FSA staff 

and no reductions in FSA staff compensation until such time that farm programs 

are greatly simplified. FSA’s ageing and antiquated computer and communications 

systems should be replaced and updated to meet the current challenges faced by FSA 

staff in the delivery of farm, conservation, credit and disaster programs.’’ In that same spirit, we offer these critical points:

• NAFEC appreciates the work of the U.S. Congress in providing the authority 

for delivery of more programs to more farmers;

• NAFEC urges that Congress consider reducing the complexities of future farm 

programs so that we can deliver more programs to more farms, more efficiently, 

but anyone that follows the current trends in that regard cannot realistically 

expect any real change;

• NAFEC urges more staffing at the state and county level in order to deliver 

more programs to more farmers, but again anyone that follows the current 

trends in that regard cannot realistically expect any real change;

• NAFEC urges that no more county FSA offices be closed so that we can deliver 

more programs to more farmers, but once more, anyone that follows the current 

trends in that regard cannot realistically expect any real change;

• NAFEC therefore demands an investment into a modern IT platform to allow 

FSA and the other field delivery agencies of the USDA, deliver more programs 

to more farmers and rural Americans;

The investment in a modern IT platform must be dedicated toward that objective. 

We commend Secretary Vilsack for his commitment and leadership on this issue and 

we commend Congress and the leadership in this room for helping dedicate additional IT funds in the FY 2010 Federal budget and the Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act of 2009, but the Secretary needs more help from Congress to fully fund and fully 

dedicate those resources toward that objective. 

Many of you know the unwritten challenges faced by Secretary Vilsack, Administrator Coppess and their predecessors. They know very well the intended mandates 

of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees when it comes to farm programs 

and their delivery. In prior years the agency requested adequate resources to comply 

with those mandates, but once those requests are diced and sliced at the Office of 

Management and Budget, the official request presented to Congress was well short 

of the need. Hopefully you understand this challenge and can better assist the Secretary in the future. 

For too many years, FSA has been forced to take funding away from salaries for 

staff and expense money for county and state offices to fund stop-gap measures to 

keep the old IT system up and running. FSA has bled all of the people and brick 

and mortar it can afford to keep the old IT system running. There must be a separate, dedicated, statutory funding stream for a modern IT platform—authorized by 

Congress—if we are to deliver all of the programs authorized by Congress to all of 

the farmers and ranchers mandated by Congress.

We commend President Obama and Secretary Vilsack for their bold initiatives on 

broadband deployment in rural America. We also suggest that county FSA offices 

and USDA Service Centers be prioritized as a high priority target for broadband deployment. If we can get broadband to our FSA county offices it would not only help 

negate the agency’s antiquated and decaying LAN–WAN system, but we may also 

have a better chance of getting broadband deployment to the rest of the county and 

into the homes and offices of farmer and ranch families. 

Some newer technology is being deployed using the internet as a platform. Using 

Electronic Authorization (e-auth), some producers have the ability to sign up for 

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some programs using their home or office computers. Many producers do not have 

computers or if they do, they do not have a comfort level or the expertise to use 

the online process. But an even larger obstacle may be that many, if not most, rural 

areas still do not have broadband internet service. Internet based program delivery 

is a very good supplemental platform, but is in no way an acceptable replacement 

for ‘‘over-the-counter’’ service at the county FSA office.

In closing, we wish to reemphasize these points:

• There are more FSA programs available today than ever before;

• There are more farmers qualifying for FSA programs than ever before;

• Farm programs are more complex than ever before;

• There are few FSA employees and fewer FSA offices than in any time in modern history; and

• The FSA IT platform is in dire need of modernization.

This hearing focused only on the final point in this list, but the other points cannot be easily addressed by either Congress or the Administration. Therefore let me 

restate that there must be a separate, dedicated, statutory funding stream for a 

modern IT platform—authorized by Congress—if we are to deliver all of the programs authorized by Congress to all of the farmers and ranchers mandated by Congress. 

NAFEC and I appreciate your invitation to address this Committee today, we 

commend your leadership and initiative in addressing these issues and I will be 

happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

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The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Turner. 

Next, Dr. Craig. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. ‘‘WILL’’ CRAIG, PH.D., PRESIDENT, 

NATIONAL STATES GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION COUNCIL; 

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR URBAN & REGIONAL 

AFFAIRS, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MINNEAPOLIS, MN 

Dr. CRAIG. Chairman Baca and Members of the Committee, 

thanks for inviting me here today. 

I am going to focus my comments on the National Agriculture 

Imagery Program (NAIP), which is operated at FSA to serve the 

various programs in USDA but it also has huge value for state and 

local governments. I am here in my capacity as the President of the 

National States Geographic Information Council but I am also the 

Associate Director at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, 

University of Minnesota, where we have a lot of contacts with people across the state, and I am also on the Governor’s Council for 

Geographic Information. 

We have meetings when we go out to Fergus Falls, Saint Cloud, 

Winona, where we invite people in from the local community and 

ask them as a council that is trying to organize things at the state 

level, what can we do for you? And the answer is always get us 

new orthoimagery. Get us new air photos. We push them on why 

they need that and it includes things like Farm Programs and the 

farmers who need those photos for their own work. It includes 

things from people who are working on water quality where they 

took the—or flooding for that matter and that is going to happen 

again in the Red River Valley pretty soon. Those air photos are 

going to be part of the whole deployment and trying to make sure 

that people’s lives are safe and that they can move things in and 

out of the community. 

Those air photos are used as backdrops. They are used as things 

that we interpret to turn into land coverage that then we can use 

to do soil modeling for soil erosion which leads to clean water. So, 

there all kinds of things being done at the state and local government level. State DNR needs them for habitat management and 

DOT needs it for road maintenance and management. We do have 

right now pretty current air photos for Minnesota. I just asked people at our Minnesota Geographic Information Office what kinds of 

use those get, 71⁄2 million hits in the last year, the last Federal fiscal year. 

This data is not just used for Farm Programs. It is used by state 

and local government, by private sector, people who are working 

with state and local government and folks, and it makes a huge difference in the quality of life. 

The problem is that we don’t know when the next one is coming. 

It has been very sporadic having the NAIP Program tied to the IT 

budget it means that sometimes more is available, sometimes less. 

We have nothing we can plan on. 

If we talk about what the states would like with the NSGIC, this 

group I represent at a national level would like, we would like 

statewide coverage and oftentimes we can put some resources on 

the table to make that happen. We would like buy-up options so 

that if people want to have higher resolution photos or different 

49

bands and what the airplane picks up when it goes over, we want 

to have that and we are willing to pay for it. We want nationwide 

coverage that would include Alaska and Hawaii and the highland 

areas. We want the information as it does now to end up in the 

public domain. This is one of the beauties. People say to me, why 

don’t you just use Google? I am telling you that Google is using 

NAIP for this computer server, who is feeding who here? 

Our problem, as I said, is that we would like to have the program institutionalized in some way so that we know how to count 

on it, so we know year after year when it is coming, what we can 

expect and we get our part organized to use that data and to contribute to it. One possibility that we have put forward is the idea 

of a separate line item in the budget for NAIP. 

That concludes my remarks, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Craig follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. ‘‘WILL’’ CRAIG, PH.D., PRESIDENT, NATIONAL

STATES GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION COUNCIL; ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR

URBAN & REGIONAL AFFAIRS, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, MINNEAPOLIS, MN 

Chairman Baca, Ranking Member King and Members of the Subcommittee, I 

thank you for the opportunity to testify about the status of information technology 

at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). My comments today are limited to 

the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP), which is operated by the Farm 

Services Agency (FSA). The NAIP program supports the administration of USDA’s 

various farm programs and NAIP imagery is provided to Federal, state, local and 

tribal government agencies, educational and scientific institutions, and private sector parties across the country at nominal cost. 

I’m here in my capacity as President of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), but I’m also the Associate Director at the Center for Urban 

& Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota. In both capacities, I see the tremendous value of NAIP aerial photography for state and local governments (See list 

of uses starting on Page 52) and I want to relate the importance of this program 

to the Members of the Subcommittee. 

In 2004, NSGIC introduced a concept called Imagery for the Nation (IFTN) which 

is still being studied by a Federal multi-agency committee. There are two compoFigure 1—Comparison of a very high resolution leaf-off image (left) with a 

NAIP high resolution image (right) to show that leaf-off imagery is used to 

identify features below the tree canopy. Both image types meet specific 

business needs.

resources and developing management plans for farms). The other component of 

IFTN is a very high resolution imagery program (1 foot resolution) that is collected 

during leaf-off periods. This type of imagery has great value to all communities for 

mapping applications, since you can ‘‘see’’ through significant areas of vegetation to 


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identify features on the ground (e.g., see the red circles in the images above that 

show houses and roads to the left that don’t appear under tree cover in the forested 

areas to the right). Both types of imagery are complimentary and both are critical 

to meet the varied needs of all government programs. 

Five years after the introduction of IFTN as a concept, we are very pleased with 

the continuous improvements made to the NAIP program. Secretary Vilsack and the 

staff of the Farm Services Agency should be commended for their commitment to 

this program. I have previously referred to NAIP as a ‘‘happy accident,’’ meaning 

that it was a Federal program that just happened to align with some of the business 

requirements of state and local governments. In the past few years, however, USDA 

has turned a happy accident into an intentionally productive partnership. They understand the inherent value of this program to all levels of government, the agricultural community and the general public (e.g., as a base image in Google EarthTM). 

FSA diligently works to improve its products and to account for the business requirements of its stakeholders. NAIP program managers have worked very hard to 

meet the vision of IFTN while functioning within the constraints of their mission 

and budget. It is truly refreshing to see this level of commitment and dedication.

Figure 2—The Old Faithful geyser located in Yellowstone National Park. 

Using modern digital cameras, one image can be acquired to produce color 

infrared imagery (left) and natural color imagery (right). Each type of imagery meets specific business needs.

One key element of Imagery for the Nation is the opportunity to ‘‘buy up,’’ that 

is the ability of users like state and local governments to pay an extra amount to 

obtain improvements in the basic NAIP images tailored to meet their own business 

requirements. They work with USDA through cooperative agreements and pay the 

full cost of modifying the base imagery to meet their own requirements (e.g., image 

type, accuracy and acquisition date). The examples shown above compare natural 

color and color infrared imagery as one example of a possible buy-up option. Each 

type of imagery allows the user to interpret and understand different things about 

the condition of the land. Color infrared (CIR) imagery can be acquired at a slightly 

higher cost than the base product and the requesting party pays all additional costs. 

CIR allows for accurate interpretation of forest type and identification of wetlands 

among other uses. Again, USDA has been willing to work with state and local governments to incorporate their requirements into its contracts to help reduce duplication of effort and government waste. By working through the contracts administered 

by USDA, states are able to significantly reduce their own costs. This is because 

large area contracting reduces the per square mile costs for acquiring and processing imagery. This translates into smarter, more efficient and cost-effective government. Imagery acquired on an annual basis can help monitor the conversion of 

agricultural land, urban growth, general land cover changes and construction activities. Imagery also helps to document progress on major construction projects such 

as those being funded through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.


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I would be negligent, if I didn’t discuss the importance of this program to the private sector companies that perform the image acquisition and processing work. They 

have enormous investments in research and development, aircraft, equipment, facilities and IT infrastructure. The business generated by the NAIP program is responsible for maintaining hundreds of high-tech jobs within the photogrammetric industry and related support jobs throughout the country (e.g., aircraft mechanics and 

hotel staff). Given the current economy, the positive impact of this program can’t 

be overstated and it will help these companies survive until our economy is once 

again solvent and growing. 

Now, I would like to get to the point of this discussion. I’m asking you, on behalf 

of the Board of Directors and state government members of NSGIC, for legislation 

that will provide a statutory authorization to assure that funding for NAIP is kept 

separate from salaries and expenses of FSA—a step necessary to keep the program 

stable and predictable. I’m also asking you to fund the NAIP program at a level adequate to support annual 1 meter image acquisition over the Continental U.S. 

(CONUS), 1 meter imagery every 5 years over Alaska, and 1 meter imagery every 

3 years over Hawaii and the insular areas—a total cost estimated at about $55 million per year. NAIP funding has previously been limited to CONUS, but these other 

areas are also critical to the economy and security of the nation. They are either 

not served, or are severely underserved by government imagery programs. NSGIC 

is absolutely confident that FSA staff can manage a comprehensive 1 meter program 

for the entire nation and we urge you to give them this responsibility.


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by NSGIC members. In many cases, these applications can also be satisfied by other 

types of imagery. Others are only partially satisfied by NAIP due to the characteristics of the imagery, but regardless of any issues, this is an impressive list that demonstrates the usefulness of this program. Having a dependable program with annual 

refresh cycles will increase the number of uses for NAIP. 

Typical Uses for NAIP Orthoimagery 

(Partial List for Illustration Purposes) 

Fire and Emergency Services 

ÿ Locating roads, buildings and infrastructure in wildland fire prone areas and 

during other events that require protection or evacuation (i.e., hazardous materials release)

ÿ Mitigate and plan for wildfire losses (i.e., Firewise Program).

ÿ Determine staging areas for large incidents.

ÿ Determine ingress and egress points during incidents.

ÿ Provide to mutual aid companies to assist their orientation to the area.

ÿ Locating snowmobile, ski and ATV trails for wireless 911 rescues.

ÿ Aid in search and rescue operations and for finding landing sites in wilderness 

areas for helicopters. 

Law Enforcement and Homeland Security 

ÿ Use during incidents and preplan for containing escaped offenders from crime 

scenes and at correctional facilities.

ÿ Determine ingress and egress points when serving warrants and during incidents.

ÿ Determine staging areas for back-up and special operations units.

ÿ Identify weaknesses in border security.

ÿ Depict critical infrastructure features and their location to populated areas.

ÿ Use for crime scene analysis, trends and pattern recognition. 

Emergency Management 

ÿ Evacuation route planning.


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ÿ Floodplain mapping.

ÿ Flooding analysis and mitigation activities.

ÿ Emergency management analysis and planning.

ÿ Identify, monitor, assess and map the effects of wildland fires, wind storms, 

ice storms, landslides, avalanches, tornados, hurricanes, flooding and other disasters.

ÿ Identify, map and plan for the security of critical infrastructure.

ÿ Use in command posts to brief and inform senior managers.

ÿ Identify existing structures in danger due to natural or man-made disasters. 

Transportation 

ÿ Use for alternative route analysis and planning.

ÿ Assist in the design and engineering requirements for bridge and culvert 

projects.

ÿ Assist in establishing rural route addressing.

ÿ Display, analyze and map road accident locations. 

Natural Resources & Environmental Management 

ÿ Identify, delineate and map wetlands.

ÿ Develop land and timber management plans.

ÿ Identify, analyze and map wildlife habitats.

ÿ Support soil erosion assessments.

ÿ Support drainage studies.

ÿ Identify and map surface waters, streams and shorelines.

ÿ Identify, map and analyze watersheds.

ÿ Identify, map and maintain trails (snowmobile, ski, ATV, Horse & Hiking).

ÿ Use for hunting and fishing activities.

ÿ Reduce the number of field visits made by permit staff.

ÿ Help identify and notify property owners affected by permit decisions.

ÿ Monitor natural and man-made changes in the landscape (i.e., encroachment 

on wetlands).

ÿ Quantify the impacts of sea-level rise and climate change.

ÿ Assist in carbon sequestration studies.

ÿ Assist in monitoring and regulation of permit violations (e.g., floodplain and 

wetland fills, and expansion of mining facilities).

ÿ Identify and map forest fragmentation. 

Geological Studies 

ÿ Soil mapping.

ÿ Geologic mapping.

ÿ Groundwater analysis and mapping.

ÿ Identify and map geologic hazard areas.

ÿ Identify and map land subsidence and ground fissures due to groundwater extraction.

ÿ Identify, analyze and map geothermal and mineral resources.

ÿ Use for oil and gas exploration and development. 

Agriculture 

ÿ Compliance and crop monitoring.

ÿ Agricultural land delineations.

ÿ Monitoring the spread and eradication of invasive species.

ÿ Determine need for and plan spraying programs (e.g., Mosquito and Gypsy 

Moth abatement).

ÿ Plan re-vegetation programs.

ÿ Determine the health of forests, grazing and multiple use areas.

ÿ Use for farmstead activities (e.g., routing driveways, and locating new feedlots 

and buildings).

ÿ Use in precision agriculture to assure maximum economic return to farmers 

while reducing environmental problems associated with over-fertilization.

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ÿ Use in developing conservation plans, nutrient management plans, tile drainage plans, wind break plans, and manure management plans.

ÿ Identify grazing issues and rangeland health. 

Education 

ÿ Bus Routing Decisions.

ÿ Help students learn more about their world.

ÿ Help teach students about geography. 

Planning 

ÿ Use during comprehensive plan development.

ÿ Assist site development and redevelopment activities.

ÿ Determine and map land use.

ÿ Assist zoning decisions.

ÿ Detect changes in land cover over time (e.g., conversion of agricultural lands, 

forestry operations and urban sprawl).

ÿ Help relate planning decisions to the public. 

Assessments and Taxation 

ÿ Assist in property assessments.

ÿ Locate new and/or unauthorized building activities.

ÿ Defend assessments during Board of Review hearings. 

Public Health 

ÿ Identify and map groundwater recharge areas and well head protection zones.

ÿ Inventory potential sources of groundwater contamination.

ÿ Identify and map known Superfund locations and other sources of contamination.

ÿ Identify and map air pollution sources (i.e., factory smoke stacks).

ÿ Provide inputs for and develop modeling programs.

ÿ Identify and map disease habitats and disturbed areas (e.g., Hantavirus, 

Chronic Wasting Disease and Lyme Disease).

ÿ Identify and map failing septic systems. 

Economic Development 

ÿ Identify areas of interest for recreation and tourism.

ÿ Use for real estate acquisition decisions and to show properties to customers 

in relation to the landscape.

ÿ Identify areas for Federal land disposal and land swaps.

ÿ Plan for construction and use to monitor oil and gas pipelines, and electric 

transmission lines.

ÿ Assist preliminary site planning and construction for general construction 

projects. 

Other Uses 

ÿ Use during public meetings and hearings to help citizens relate to public programs and development activities.

ÿ Inventory public infrastructure to comply with GASBY 34/35.

ÿ Manage public utilities in compliance with EPA rules.

ÿ Identify and map every aspect of the Earth’s surface and manmade structures.

ÿ Use as historic records of man’s activities.

ÿ Use to locate survey monuments and to plan surveying activities.

ÿ Monitor water ‘‘rustling.’’

ÿ Inventory, analyze and map open space for wind, solar, and other alternative 

energies.

ÿ Backdrop for interactive web-mapping sites.

ÿ Providing on-demand printed aerial ‘‘Maps’’ for the public (e.g., hunters, land 

owners, real estate developers, and hiking).

ÿ Selecting sites for communications towers.

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ÿ Help provide location information to a more geographically aware public (e.g.,

public meetings, news broadcasts, and commercial mapping sites like Google 

EarthTM and MapquestTM.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Craig. 

Mr. Krosch. 

STATEMENT OF JIM KROSCH, SUPERVISOR, STEVENS SOIL 

AND WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT, MORRIS, MN; ON

BEHALF OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION 

DISTRICTS 

Mr. KROSCH. Good morning. I am Jim Krosch, one of five elected 

supervisors of the Stevens Soil and Water Conservation District located in Morris, Minnesota. Currently, there are 91 Soil and Water 

Conservation Districts in Minnesota providing 100 percent coverage of the state. I am pleased to be here today on behalf of the 

National Association of Conservation Districts to discuss the importance of the USDA’s information technology systems. 

To assist in the implementation of Federal conservation programs, our members work with the NRCS in the FSA agencies as 

well as other Federal agencies and state and county programs. 

USDA relies on conservation districts and other partners to deliver 

local technical services to farmers, ranchers, private land owners 

that are in the communities. It is vital that the USDA data and 

technical tools are available to conservation district employees. As 

full partners of NRCS, districts use these tools every day to support local conservation efforts. 

The partnership between NRCS and conservation districts is 

unique. Most districts have technical staff with access to the same 

technology that NRCS uses. This ensures the landowners have access to the tools needed to develop and implement the appropriate 

conservation actions. 

At SSWCD in Minnesota, we use this technology on a day-to-day 

basis. It is a vital link between us as a conservation district and 

our Federal partners so we may work together putting conservation 

on the ground. Without access to these programs, we would not be 

as effective. Using the NRCS Toolkit, we, along with our partners, 

have put over 5,400 acres into the Wetland Reserve Program in our 

county alone averaging over $12 million of Federal and matching 

state funds, which in turn stimulates the local economy through 

the use of local contractors, seed vendors and other partners. 

As a third-generation farmer, who has actively farmed for over 

25 years, I can personally attest to the importance of technical assistance and access to the technology needed to design and implement sound conservation practices. In partnership with my conservation district and the NRCS, I have implemented a number of 

different conservation practices on my farm. Without this technology, it would have been very difficult to effectively employ successful conservation practices on my land. 

Let me use a couple of examples from my work at Stevens 

SWCD. When a landowner comes in with an idea for a particular 

piece of property he will sit down with a technician and discuss his 

or her plan. This initial interview gives our technician the basic 

groundwork for what the producer is looking for. The Toolkit software then allows us to work with the landowner to effectively deVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
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termine the feasibility of his or her project. The map you have in 

front of you is an example of how we use GIS Toolkit and aerial 

photography to map a filter strip along a stream. We are able to 

use these tools on both an individual and multi-farm or watershed 

basis. 

As an elected district supervisor, I cannot stress enough the importance of this technology to effectively serve producers and landowners in our district. Landowners and local units of government 

expect conservation district and NRCS staff to be able to obtain 

maps and detailed imagery of their land during their visit. This 

service and technology provides the American taxpayer with excellent value. 

Yes, the system is not perfect. It has had problems with 

download speeds and difficulty in getting things going, but your IT 

staff does an excellent job of trying to keep it going. We are especially excited about the improved aerial imagery that is slowly becoming available. One of the most promising new technologies to 

enable the gathering and availability of the elevation data is Light 

Detection and Ranging, or LIDAR. LIDAR makes possible the collection and analysis of elevation data over large areas at a scale 

that has not been feasible in the past. We need to make sure this 

exciting technology is available in all states to assist in our conservation efforts. 

Without the continued upgrading of software, maintenance of the 

system and full access for conservation districts to form information and technical tools through the USDA’s IT system, the seamless and efficient delivery of conservation technical assistance by 

our conservation districts would be severely reduced. Ultimately, 

America’s food, fiber, feed and fuel producers would suffer due to 

diminished access to quality technical assistance to help them protect their natural resources. 

We encourage you to continue to provide quality technology support for all of our agencies. The better the technology we have, the 

better we can serve our producers and in the end, achieve our goal 

of putting conservation on the ground. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of the 

conservation districts across the country. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Krosch follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JIM KROSCH, SUPERVISOR, STEVENS SOIL AND WATER

CONSERVATION DISTRICT, MORRIS, MN; ON BEHALF OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF

CONSERVATION DISTRICTS

Good Morning. I am Jim Krosch, one of five elected supervisors of the Stevens 

Soil and Water Conservation District located in Morris, Minnesota. Currently there 

are 91 Soil and Water Conservation Districts (SWCD) in Minnesota, providing 100 

percent coverage of the state. There is at least one SWCD in each of the 87 counties, 

while a few of the larger counties have more than one. Soil and water conservation 

districts are established in each community, governed by local leaders and focused 

on the conservation of local soil and water resources. As a result, Minnesotans trust 

SWCDs to provide needed technology, funding and educational services for their respective communities. I am pleased to be here today on behalf of the National Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) to discuss the importance of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) information technology systems. 

Across the United States, nearly 3,000 conservation districts are helping local people to conserve land, water, forests, wildlife and related natural resources. We share 

a single mission: to coordinate assistance from all available sources—public and private, local, state and Federal—in an effort to develop locally-driven solutions to natVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
57

ural resource concerns. More than 17,000 officials serve in elected or appointed positions on conservation districts’ governing boards. Working directly with more than 

2.3 million cooperating land managers and local communities nationwide, their efforts touch more than 1.6 billion acres of private land. We support voluntary, incentive-based programs that provide a range of options, providing both financial and 

technical assistance to guide landowners in the adoption of conservation practices, 

improving soil, air and water quality providing habitat and enhanced land. 

Established under state law, conservation districts are local units of state government charged with carrying out programs for the protection and management of 

natural resources at the local level. To assist in the implementation of Federal conservation programs, our members work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and the Farm Service Agency 

(FSA), as well as other Federal agencies and state and county programs. 

Technical assistance is the backbone of Federal conservation programs, as well as 

state and local programs. Technical assistance is the individualized guidance and 

information that helps a landowner make a change. It could be engineering design 

work, assistance from an agronomist, localized information for soil types, habitat, 

nutrient reduction strategies and know-how for application of conservation practices 

and structures or the development and implementation of nutrient management 

plans. Whatever form the technical assistance takes, USDA information technology 

provides the important tools by which technical assistance is delivered. 

NRCS relies on conservation districts and other partners to deliver a substantial 

amount of local technical services to farmers, ranchers, private landowners, and 

urban communities. It is vital that that the NRCS data and technical tools to service landowners are available to local conservation district office employees. As full 

partners of the NRCS, districts use the technical tools day in, day out to support 

local conservation efforts. 

USDA provides a wide range of information technologies and tools to users of its 

systems, including conservation districts. Some examples include tools or technologies to address erosion and soil quality, water quality and water conservation, 

nutrient and pest management, air quality, livestock management and grazing, 

stream restoration, hydraulics and hydrology, and energy conservation assessment. 

The partnership between NRCS and conservation districts is unique. As full partners with NRCS, conservation districts make heavy use of the USDA database. Most 

districts have technical staff that provide technical service to landowners that want 

to participate in farm bill programs and develop conservation plans. These district 

technicians, with access to the same Federal technology that NRCS uses, are able 

to work with clients and provide technical assistance in partnership with NRCS. 

This strong partnership between NRCS and conservation districts allows districts 

to take on some of the local conservation workload and ensures that landowners 

have access to the tools needed to develop and take appropriate conservation actions. 

Geographic information systems (GIS) are a core technology for conservation districts to utilize in the delivery of conservation technical assistance helping landowners address natural resource problems on the land. Every NRCS field office 

across the nation has GIS as part of their information technology system, which includes GIS layers such as soils, topography, roads, streams, field boundaries and 

other layers. Through access to NRCS information systems, conservation districts 

also have access to GIS data and analysis capabilities. 

The two important programs that contribute to GIS are the National Agriculture 

Imagery Program (NAIP) and the National Digital Orthophoto Programs (NDOP). 

These are important components of geospatial tools used by local conservationists. 

NAIP acquires much of the aerial imagery used in conservation planning and provides the base layer used in GIS. It is the foundation of GIS programs. 

The National Digital Orthophoto Programs (NDOP) is a consortium of Federal 

agencies with the purpose of developing and maintaining national orthoimagery. 

This is the program that generates the GIS layers used for conservation planning 

and other natural resource activities by digitizing and ‘‘correcting’’ the aerial photography from NAIP or other sources. 

As an NRCS and FSA partner and user of USDA technologies, conservation districts also have access to this imagery and orthophotography. 

In our Soil and Water Conservation District in Minnesota we use this technology 

on a day-to-day basis. It’s the vital link between us as a Conservation District and 

our Federal partners to work together putting conservation on the ground. Without 

access to these computer programs, I have no doubt that we would not be as effective as we have been over the past several years. Using the NRCS Toolkit we, along 

with our partners, have put over 5,400 acres into the Wetland Reserve Program 

(WRP) in our county alone, leveraging over $12 million dollars of Federal and 

58

matching state funds, which in turn stimulates the local economy through the use 

of local contractors, seed vendors and other partners. WRP takes sensitive, marginal 

land out of agricultural production and puts it back into wildlife habitat and wetlands, which helps alleviate erosion and flooding. The importance of being able to 

effectively use programs such as WRP are even more apparent today, as we watch 

Fargo, North Dakota and other cities along our rivers prepare for near record flooding again this spring. 

As a third generation farmer who has been actively farming for over 25 years, I 

can personally attest to the importance of technical assistance and access to the 

technology needed to design and implement sound conservation practices. In partnership with my conservation district and NRCS, I have implemented a number of 

different conservation practices on my farm, including nearly 100 acres of CRP, filter strips, sediment dams and grass waterways. All this was done by working with 

Stevens SWCD and the local NRCS office. Without this technology, I would be unable to effectively employ successful conservation practices on my land. 

Let me use a couple of examples from our work at Stevens SWCD. 

When a landowner comes in with an idea for a particular piece of property, he 

will sit down with our technicians and discuss his or her plan. The landowner may 

be interested in putting a buffer or filter strip along a river, stream or ditch, or perhaps something as simple as dealing with an area in a field that is perpetually wet 

and floods out his or her crop year after year. This initial interview gives our technician the basic groundwork for what the producer is looking for. The next step is 

pulling up the aerial photo of the producer’s field. The convenient thing about Toolkit is that it provides a one-stop-shop, if you will, of everything the technician will 

need to determine if the area the farmer is looking at is eligible for any of the programs currently available. This includes the aerial photo, common land units (CLU), 

soils maps, national wetlands inventory (NWI), highly erodible land (HEL), hydric 

rating, as well as other layers that delineate where sensitive state and Federal 

lands are located. The technician takes all these factors into account when they 

draw out the proposed areas that the producer would like to enroll. These maps are 

stored in a Toolkit database under the producer’s name or farm name along with 

all related information for their operation. Having access to this technology gives 

our technicians the ability to get an accurate feel for the producer’s land, so we can 

help him or her make the best conservation choices for his or her operation, perhaps 

even a program he or she hadn’t thought of. 

As I stated before, SWCD use this technology on a daily basis for all programs. 

It has been and continues to be a successful tool when dealing with the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) or the Wetland Reserve Program (WRP). Another example is a producer who has a stream running through his or her property. The 

landowner may want to provide a buffer strip along the stream to improve water 

quality or create habitat for wildlife. Again, we can use the aerial photo to lay out 

the approximate location, calculate the area, and check the size of the remaining 

fields to ensure that the producer is investing in a practice that makes sense for 

him or her and the purpose(s) that he or she wants to achieve. 

A third example is using the GIS and design software to lay out a series of strips 

or terraces for water control and for the purpose of helping a producer farm a more 

erosion-sensitive field in a way in which he or she can still protect the soil while 

raising a profitable crop. We use this approach to be able to help the landowner plan 

and figure what the costs would be as well as to make the field sizes and shapes 

configure to the kind of equipment that is used on the farm. 

It is also very beneficial to use the aerial photos and GIS capability for multi-farm 

projects on a watershed or habitat basis. This allows us to sit down with a group 

of landowners interested in the same objective and design a joint plan to accomplish 

their specific goals. 

Toolkit enables us to work with local, township and county road officials to plot 

out drainage from farm fields and road ditches so the system is as efficient as possible without causing undo problems downstream. 

These are just a few examples of how valuable this technology is to landowners 

and local conservation districts. As an elected district supervisor, I cannot stress 

enough the importance of this technology to effectively serve producers and landowners in our district. This technology provides my constituents with an excellent 

and invaluable service. Landowners and local units of government expect conservation district and NRCS offices to be able to obtain maps and detailed imagery of 

their farm or land area during their office visit. This technology can assist both 

large and small landowners and units of government in planning and implementing 

natural resource conservation practices. This service and technology provides the 

American tax payer with excellent value. 

59

An example of this type of service and the importance of access to detailed and 

accurate maps is what a local conservation district and the NRCS developed for the 

local drainage boards in Acadia Parish in Louisiana. Using USDA’s technology, the 

local conservation district was able to provide maps of each drainage district, showing not only the natural drainage, but also providing the locations of all major water 

control structures, erosion control structures and recreational areas. This allowed 

for installation of conservation practices and projects on a watershed basis rather 

than just an individual landowner basis. The local drainage boards had never had 

such a complete picture of their area of responsibility. Similar examples can be 

found across the country. 

The system isn’t perfect and has had some issues with speed of use, but USDA 

IT staff is constantly working on it to keep it updated and running as smoothly as 

possible. Of course there are always things that could be done to improve the system. There are times when it seems the machines are not able to download as fast 

as we would like and of course this slows down our customer service, but I understand the next upgrade or generation will help us on this front. We are especially 

excited about the improved aerial imagery that is slowly becoming available. 

The most promising new technology to enable the gathering and availability of 

elevation data is Light Detection and Ranging or LIDAR. LIDAR makes possible the 

collection and analysis of elevation data over large areas at a scale that has not 

been feasible to do in the past. LIDAR can be used to develop digital elevation models that are accurate to within 1 meter. Conservation districts and NRCS can take 

advantage of very accurate, high resolution data to analyze small differences, as little as 1–2 feet. This allows conservation district offices and NRCS to create very 

accurate soil maps which allow the district technician to determine where conservation practices have been or need to be installed before they go to the field. It also 

allows NRCS soil scientists to more efficiently do pre-mapping with increased accuracy based on elevation and spend less time in the field collecting elevation data. 

Many states are involved in efforts to acquire statewide LIDAR coverage. However, 

we need to make sure this exciting technology is available in all states to assist conservation efforts. 

Without the continued upgrading of software, maintenance of the system and full 

access for conservation districts to information and technical tools through USDA’s 

IT system, the seamless and efficient delivery of conservation technical assistance 

by our conservation districts would be severely reduced. Ultimately, America’s food, 

fiber, feed and fuel producers would suffer due to diminished access to quality technical assistance to help them protect their natural resources. We encourage you to 

continue to provide quality information technology support for the agencies. The better the technology we have, the better we can serve our producers, and in the end 

achieve our goal of putting conservation on the ground. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of conservation districts 

across the country.

60

ATTACHMENT


11143013
61

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for your 

testimony this morning. 

I recognize myself now for 5 minutes and then I will recognize 

the Ranking Member and then Mrs. Dahlkemper. 

Also, I will begin by asking any one of you that would like to respond: has anybody testified before or ever come before us to make 

sure that we get modernized equipment or updated IT, because apparently all of you feel that we are still in the dark ages? Can any 

one of you respond to that? 

Mr. MAYFIELD. I will attempt to, Mr. Chairman. No, this is the 

first time that we as NASCOE have been before the Committee 

and testified specifically on the need for improvement of our system. As far as why that hasn’t been addressed, I can’t answer that. 

I know that. 

The CHAIRMAN. That is why we are having this hearing, right? 

The other Members who have been here before us, it has never 

been brought before them? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, I am relatively new as the President of the National Farmers Union and I just turned to my staff 

member who is newer than I am, so we don’t have a lot of history 

about whether the organization has been asked to testify on this. 

I know we have testified before on USDA budgets. I would be very 

surprised if we haven’t at least encouraged adequate funding for 

technology. I say that because most of my life I have been a farmer 

and I talk to farmers and ranchers on a daily basis. They all pretty 

much, I mean there is nothing that was said here this morning 

that farmers don’t talk about regularly, routinely. They know that 

we are way behind. Most farmers are much further technologicallyadvanced on their own farm than what the government agencies 

are at USDA that are serving them, and they often are asking for 

the ability to file reports online, do just what we do with everything else in our everyday life to have that same kind of ability. 

The CHAIRMAN. Would anybody else like to attempt to answer? 

Dr. CRAIG. Mr. Chairman, I wondered whether to say this or not, 

but the last year or so we have had pretty good luck in getting the 

aerial photography that I was talking about. But, for 2 or 3 years 

before that, the entire IT budget or significant portions of it were 

pulled away from the aerial photography to get into the modernization, to help with the IT side of things. Maybe they made a good 

start but it hurt the thing that I care about the most. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. Yes, sir, I tell you I also am relatively new as the 

President of NAFEC but NAFEC in the past has made contact with 

several Committee Members about IT problems and the problems 

that it caused and we have not ever heard anything back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Hopefully, this time we will be able 

to respond, but let me start asking my additional questions. 

Mr. Johnson, thank you very much for you testimony today. As 

an organization representing the family farmers and ranchers that 

rely on many of the critical Farm Programs at USDA, I appreciate 

hearing NAFEC’s views and thoughts on this important subject. In 

your testimony you mentioned the problem that USDA IT systems 

have had in implementing newer programs established in the 2008 

62

Farm Bill. I believe that you were involved in the creation of the 

SURE Program and new Permanent Disaster Program in the 2008 

Farm Bill. Did you consider the ability of FSA to deliver these programs when you were working on the concept? That is question 

number one and then do you know of any farm bill programs that 

have not lived up to their Congressional intent due to poor technology at USDA? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, yes, Mr. Chairman, we were very deeply involved in the details of the SURE Program as it was moving 

through these committees and others in Congress. All of the components that are used to make payments under SURE are components that currently exist in USDA. There is nothing new. The one 

part that might be new is the need to make sure that you are using 

data that RMA is also using because the two are very closely 

linked to the other, but, frankly, that ought to be an automatic. So 

I mean as we are putting the details together, it sounds like the 

question you are asking is should we have designed it differently 

so it could have worked with the technology that we have. I don’t 

know that that was your intent but I don’t know that anyone could 

design a program that would work with the technology that is as 

old, as outdated, as archaic, as what currently exists. So, maybe I 

ought to just leave it right there. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, thank you very much. 

I know that my time has expired so at this point, I will recognize 

our Ranking Member, Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. One of you had observed, I am sorry, I have 

forgotten which one it was, that many farmers have more advanced, sophisticated technological tools that you actively utilize as 

part of the farm operation. Now, most farmers are either there or 

are rapidly transitioning to this. But, in the earlier testimony it 

was alluded to that older systems that do empower a farmer to continue to access services in the more traditional fashion also need 

to be available. Why don’t you give me a benchmark as to where 

we are in terms of the evolution of the use of technology by the 

farm community as it would interface with government programs 

more simply and more easily, reducing wait time, reducing paperwork such as things that could be filled out online ahead of time 

versus the segment of the community that may not be there yet? 

Mr. MAYFIELD. I will attempt that, Ranking Member 

Fortenberry. I guess the biggest challenges we have, most of our 

larger producers, have GIS technology. You know, they have their 

combines that now have the capability to keep orthomapping data 

and it would be great to be able to upload that information into our 

system to directly report new-old and be able to calculate yield for 

ACRE Programs, for DCP Programs and for our record-keeping 

purposes. Simply, the system we have now, that is not possible, so 

we deal everyday with producers that are applying nutrients that 

are required by soil conservation plans or whatever to be 

precisionally applied to protect against runoff, and that type of 

thing for nutrient loading. Our systems aren’t capable to provide 

or share that information to allow us to be able to accomplish these 

tasks. So certainly, a lot of our producers are much further technologically advanced than we are and it is sometimes especially frustrating for us to see that happen. One of the things that could realVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
63

ly accomplish that task and help us move in that direction is 

maybe the elimination of some of the duplicative services that we 

have within our offices. 

I know we have mentioned here about working with maps. For 

example, in a county service center, we have two separate systems 

within the same service center that deals with the map process. 

The gentleman mentioned Toolkit. NRCS uses a product called 

Toolkit. FSA uses a product called the Maintenance Tool. They are 

not compatible. They don’t communicate with each other and we 

would certainly like to see those be compatible because it would 

make so much easier to share information, and it would keep a producer from having to give that information to both of us. If they 

are trying to satisfy the requirements for our programs into their 

programs, they could give it to one central place and then we could 

share that information. The same thing is going on with RMA, with 

NASS and with FSA processes. You know, within USDA we are 

paying for and accepting the acreage reports and yield information 

in three different places and why do we continue to invest in that—

a budget environment where we are restricted on available dollars 

where we could take that information in one place and share it 

within departments or within agencies. 

These are the things that our producers would like for us to see. 

Again, as Congressman King had mentioned, their time is very valuable and they don’t want to have to go to two or three different 

places and provide the same piece of information when they should 

be able to upload that information to one central place and be able 

to share it within the Department. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Any broader sense though of the numbers of 

producers who have advanced capabilities that would be able to, 

not just in terms of downloading information from the farm that 

would be a part of the reporting requirements, but in terms of 

other interfaces that take place, for instance, at the Farm Service 

Agency. And by the way, there is a little bit of a tension here in 

that we want to move in the direction like you are talking about, 

but it is based on the premise that all producers are ready to do 

that with the technology, with an understanding of the technology 

that is available to them. So I am just trying to get a sense in 

terms of where we are as a farm community, pretty well there, 

partly there? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, I would think that we are quite a ways there 

with the farm community. We have to look at this thing kind of 

piecemeal. I mean obviously not everyone has GIS capabilities, but 

a lot of folks have PCs at home and that is sort of a basic. I had 

one of the farmers in one of the states tell me that FSA has 30 different program applications. This farmer said in his state three of 

those program applications were available online and had been 

available online for some time. The three that he said were online 

were the customer statement, the LDPs and DCP. He went on to 

say that it has been 5 years since he even had an LDP payment 

made, so ten percent of the total is available online and some of 

what is available isn’t even being used anymore. So it is that real 

basic to just let the farmers interface, if you will, with the agency 

might be sort of the first step. 

64

Mr. TURNER. If I could touch on that briefly, this is a prime example of where a lot of the rural community still don’t have the 

broadband so the capability is not there. I mean this would be an 

excellent opportunity to move our agriculture into that area if 

broadband was available in all those areas, but where I live there 

is still a considerable amount of people that are on the old dial-up 

system. If you start in on an FSA application, by the time you get 

it open and get your name and your number entered, your dial-up 

has dropped and you start over. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Yes, the question was premised on that availability. Yes, that is a good point. Thank you. 

Mr. KROSCH. Okay, in my area, the farming community is rapidly progressing. We have the entire spectrum from the older farmers who use their PCs for e-mail capability to the young farmers 

who live by it. The equipment is gaining—we have all the yield 

mapping or the sprayers are mapping what chemical goes where. 

I mean we have do all of this. It is also scattered, as many different 

programs, many different manufacturers of different software, so it 

is going to be difficult to pull that together for the FSA. It is going 

to have—it is struggling just like we are or you are talking about 

with yours, we are all growing and it adds more problems to what 

you are trying to accomplish. But, the farm industry is moving very 

rapidly fowards, very rapidly. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Okay, thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Fortenberry. 

Now, I would like to call on the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, 

Mrs. Dahlkemper. 

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If we go ahead and imagine 1 year from today and you or your 

successor is sitting here in front of us, can you each tell me what 

would be the one improvement that you would like to see they 

would be reporting on has changed, something that is attainable, 

that is practical and what is most important. Just one thing you 

would like to be sitting here reporting to us has changed. 

Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. It is hard to narrow it to one. Certainly, having 

the ability to report once across multiple agencies, that probably 

isn’t it going to be a problem that gets fixed in 1 year, so maybe 

a smaller goal would be to at least have the program applications 

available online so farmers could connect. 

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Thank you. 

Mr. Mayfield. 

Mr. MAYFIELD. I would say that probably the most important 

thing would be elimination of these duplicative services that our 

processors are going out to today to get that down to where that 

producer can use one place to do his business and not have to 

worry about providing that same information to multiple places. 

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. Turner. 

Mr. TURNER. I would agree with both of these gentlemen and 

also on the importance in getting the IT technology into the rural 

areas would be your first attainable goal, the broadband. 

65

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Do think what we have been doing through 

the Recovery Act will help with that? 

Mr. TURNER. I think it will. 

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Okay, thank you. 

Dr. Craig. 

Dr. CRAIG. For me, it is simple. I want a regular program for delivering aerial photography. 

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Okay, thank you. 

Mr. Krosch. 

Mr. KROSCH. From a conservation standpoint, the LIDAR imaging so that we can sit in our offices and get a good picture of what 

is out in the land, so we can tailor a program for what the producer 

wants to do. 

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Okay, thank you very much. 

I also want that, because obviously we have huge issues with the 

budget and so we have to find a way to pay for this. There should 

have been money expended for many years that was not expended 

in this area. I guess I just want to ask all of you if you have any 

thoughts on where we would get this additional funding. Are there 

other places we could save in the areas that are you dealing? Are 

there areas we could look to, to actually funnel money into improvements that you are looking for? 

Mr. TURNER. I think you won’t have an initial savings, but once 

you get this system in place, you will save immensely because of 

the duplications and the man hours that it takes to use multiple 

systems inside one agency, is one of my feelings. 

Mrs. DAHLKEMPER. Thank you. 

Does anyone else have anything different? 

Okay, that is all the questions I have. I yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you very much. 

This is a question for all of the panelists here. Any one of you 

can attempt to answer it if you care to. Do you believe that the current statutory limits and regulations on the release of producer 

data together are striking a good balance between the producer privacy and the ability to carry out programs or the public’s right to 

know about program participation? 

Mr. MAYFIELD. I understand the public’s right to know, I mean 

most the money that we deal with and the programs that we implement are tax dollars. I understand that and I think we are close 

to a place where the public does have sufficient access to the information that they need to know that those dollars are expended appropriately and accurately without crossing into a producer’s personal privacy. I do think that is very important to protect our producers across the country that their privacy and what they do in 

their private business is just as important as an IBM or any other 

company across this country. It is part of their own personal small 

business that they operate each and everyday, so I do feel that we 

are very close to a balance with the information we provide. It is 

sufficient as far as what the public is aware of a producer’s particular information. 

The CHAIRMAN. Does anybody else wish to—yes, Dr. Craig? 

Dr. CRAIG. You have touched another part and I guess you may 

have it in the geographic information system world and for us data 

is important. One of the biggest problems we have with this being 

66

local government is the lack of good personal mapping around the 

country, and yet here you have locked up the CLU boundaries 

which could be just generalized out to ownership parcels. That is 

all anybody needs for appraisal and for that matter, emergency response kinds of issues. Yet, you had those out for a little while and 

then you pulled them back in, and it has meant that the smaller 

local governments are just dead in the water for getting any kind 

of a digital personal map. 

The CHAIRMAN. Anyone else? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I would say the same thing. I was scratching my 

head trying to think of an example but that actually is one where 

we have had a number of folks talk to us, the CLU boundary 

issues. That is a big deal, yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. 

Dr. Craig, it is clear to see that you are enthused about the 

NRCS Toolkit. Can you explain for the Subcommittee its greater 

detail and what makes this program so effective? 

Mr. Krosch. 

Mr. KROSCH. I personally don’t use it. I am a supervisor. I am 

not an employee in the office, so for me to describe it perhaps is 

not appropriate. I would be happy to get that information back to 

you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. 

And then, Mr. Mayfield, the results of your internal survey and 

the problems you have highlighted throughout your testimony, you 

show that there is much work that needs to come with a little bit 

more efficient and cost-effective program delivery system within 

the USDA. In your opinion as a representative of Farm Service employees, what is the most important thing that we can do in Congress to fix the IT mess at USDA? Is there a mess? 

Mr. MAYFIELD. Well, there is. I think first and foremost, we have 

to find a way to get away from a system that we start business 

with every day that is 26+ years old. I mean this system was there 

the day that I walked into the office, the first day and it is still 

there. It won’t be very long before I walk back out so that system 

has to be replaced, and it has to be fixed for those people that are 

coming on. It is older than most of the employees today. I think the 

next thing in this budget environment is we have to find ways to 

do things more efficiently. If we are going to have one process that 

we pay for to work with ArcMap and CLU layers, why do we want 

to continue to pay for service agreements and maintenance agreements on two different software applications? Surely we can come 

to an agreement of what the appropriate application would be that 

both NRCS and FSA could use within one particular service center, 

and not only that, there are also other duplicative services. There 

are administrative services that are handled by more than one 

agency that the decision could be made to place those in one particular place and save the money on having to support two separate 

administrative arms that we deal with within one particular service center agency. Again, to go on, we are paying for within the 

USDA the gathering of acreage and yield information in multiple 

places, and if we can gather that information in one place, I see 

that as saving money. All of that invested back in our IT system, 

I think as I mentioned in my testimony, are currently just waiting 

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for ArcMap to open and become ready to process. We are wasting 

several minutes of an employee that simply sits there and waits for 

the system to open. This is an investment in waste of those tax dollars while an employee is trying to perform their daily service. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, let me ask one final question. What do you 

believe that the timeline should be to implement new, appropriate 

equipment so that we can be a lot more cost-effective in operating 

and communicating with one another? 

Mr. MAYFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I guess I am an eternal optimist. 

I would like to have it tomorrow and I realize that is not practical. 

It concerns me somewhat as we talk about a MIDAS project, and 

I am very supportive of that project, and I don’t mean that I am 

not, but it concerns me considerably when we are talking about a 

project that is going to be another 3–4 years and we are looking 

at 2013 or 2014 before it wraps up. And we are already looking at 

a system that we realize is 26 years old or 24 or 5 years old. When 

you add another 3–4 years to the age of that system it becomes extremely difficult to believe that system is going to be able to survive that long. It amazes me each and every day that it is able to 

operate today. I don’t know that there are very many people that 

still even write COBOL software, so and I guess that concerns me 

that we are still looking at 3–4 years before we can rectify that situation. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay, thank you. 

Anybody else want to answer that? If not, that concludes the 

questions that we have. At this point, I want to thank each of the 

panelists for testifying before us. 

I am going to call on our Ranking Member for any remarks you 

would like to make before we adjourn. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. No, simply, gentlemen, thank you all for your 

testimony. Clearly, the gentleman, Mr. Smith, who testified from 

the Department talked about the fragmentation of our system. This 

easily happens in any large multi-agency or bureaucracy, and I 

think the challenges ahead are to ensure that the end-user is serviced in the most efficient manner, saving money for the taxpayers, 

but also continuing to help develop our agriculture programs and 

our conservation programs in a way that is consistent with the 

ideals of the nation, so that we are again producing an abundant 

and safe food supply, not only for ourselves but the entire world. 

So with that said, that is all of our ultimate goals here as we dig 

down into to assess how we do this more efficiently. So, I am going 

to thank you for your various ways in which you do participate in 

public service. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Before we adjourn this hearing, I would also like to thank each 

of you for your participation in today’s hearing and your thoughtful 

testimony. Your knowledge and research, I hope, will be used by 

Congress to find the best solution to improve access and more effectiveness of the information technology at USDA. Again, I want to 

thank our witnesses and Members for participating today. 

The Subcommittee will now be adjourned, but before I do I would 

like to state that under the rules of the Committee, the record of 

today’s hearing will remain open for 10 calendar days to receive adVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:41 Apr 07, 2010 Jkt 041481 PO 00000 Frm 00071 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 I:\DOCS\111-43\55623.TXT AGR1 PsN: BRIAN
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ditional materials to supplement the response from the witnesses 

or any question posed by Members. This hearing on Subcommittee 

on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry is 

now officially—before I do, I would like to ask are there any questions you would like to ask before we adjourn? I would like to give 

the gentlewoman from Wyoming an opportunity, Mrs. Lummis, an 

opportunity as most of us had an opportunity to ask questions. 

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I am sorry. I have 

conflicting hearings today so it is very nice of you to accommodate 

me. 

I just want to comment with regard to IT that I appreciate the 

problem of having outdated IT. I understand that some of it is even 

older than some of the people who are working on the computers. 

I remember taking my old skis to have the bindings adjusted and 

the young man who was going to do it said your bindings are older 

than I am, I don’t know how to work on these. And so I appreciate 

that there is a problem there, but I also want to remind people that 

for those of us on the user end of computers, some of us are older 

than those computers too and don’t know quite how to interact. 

And in Wyoming, I would express the concern that I would hate 

to see an increase in IT technology that is desperately needed be 

used as a reason to close offices that allow for eye-to-eye contact 

between USDA employees and the public. It is those interactions 

that allow the services of USDA to be fully implemented out in 

states such as my own. And so I encourage as proviso that it not 

be used as a substitute to close offices around the country. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I do have other questions but I will submit 

them for a subsequent follow-up, and I do appreciate your allowing 

me that one little comment before you officially close the hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Lummis. 

So again, I will repeat, under the rules of the Committee, the 

record of today’s hearing will remain open for 10 calendar days to 

receive additional materials and supplement the written response 

from witnesses, and any question posed by a Member. 

This hearing of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, 

Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry is now really adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:48 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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