Special Report

Robinson: conservation still at historic high

The President of the National Association of Conservation Districts says members will make do with the federal funds available.

As conservation district staff and volunteers gathered in Orlando this week, President Obama proposed sweeping budget changes, including reducing what Congress has authorized for federal conservation programs.

NACD President Steve Robinson says the organization will keep the option open of going back to Congress to try to restore the numbers, but so far, any concerns that he has stop short of sounding like complaining.

“We still are at an historic high with our conservation [budget] numbers,” Robinson told Brownfield as the NACD convention ended. “We’ve got the ability and the folks out there across the country that have the passion to do this, and we’ll get done what we need to get done.”

AUDIO: Steve Robinson (6 min. MP3)

One example of concern for Robinson is the well-used Environmental Quality Incentives Progam (EQIP) funding, which, is slightly higher, but proposed to be less than Congress authorized for 2011.

“I use it on my farm, it’s a very versatile program, it covers a lot of different things,” said Robinson about EQIP, “so I think that would be one that we want to pay close attention to and make sure we protect that because that’s a really good program that we use.”