Soil Conservation Service
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners and managers. Its name was changed in 1994 during the presidency of Bill Clinton to reflect its broader mission. It is a relatively small agency, currently comprising about 12,000 employees. Its mission is to improve, protect, and conserve natural resources on private lands through a cooperative partnership with state and local agencies. While its primary focus has been agricultural lands, it has made many technical contributions to soil surveying, classification, and water quality improvement. One example is the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP), set up to quantify the benefits of agricultural conservation efforts promoted and supported by programs in the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (2002 Farm Bill). NRCS i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soil Erosion Service
The Soil Erosion Service (SES) was founded in 1933 and was one of many Alphabet agencies, also called New Deal agencies. Soil Erosion Service was a U.S. federal government agency created by inder the Soil Conservation Act enacted on April 27, 1935. Soil Erosion Service was created to combat the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depression. The Soil Erosion Service later became the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), and then the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). History The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 included funds to fight soil erosion. Causes of the dust bowl included concentrated agriculture practiced by so-called sodbusters (farmers who replaced fields of native grasses with wheat and other crops). Some of the grassland was previously used for livestock. Most sodbuster activity came between 1905 and 1915. By the 1920s rainfall had decreased and crops failed. The soil turned to dust and formed the black blizzards of the Great P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Soil Erosion
Soil erosion is the denudation or wearing away of the Topsoil, upper layer of soil. It is a form of soil degradation. This natural process is caused by the dynamic activity of erosive agents, that is, water, ice (glaciers), snow, Atmosphere of Earth, air (wind), plants, and animals (including humans). In accordance with these agents, erosion is sometimes divided into water erosion, glacial erosion, snow erosion, Aeolian erosion, wind (aeolian) erosion, Zoogenic erosion, zoogenic erosion and anthropogenic erosion such as tillage erosion. Soil erosion may be a slow process that continues relatively unnoticed, or it may occur at an alarming rate causing a serious loss of topsoil. The loss of soil from Agricultural land, farmland may be reflected in reduced crop production potential, lower surface water quality and damaged drainage networks. Soil erosion could also cause sinkholes. Human activities have increased by 10–50 times the rate at which erosion is occurring world-wide. Exc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2008 Farm Bill
The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (, also known as the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill) was a $288 billion, five-year agricultural policy bill that was passed into law by the United States Congress on June 18, 2008. The bill was a continuation of the 2002 Farm Bill. It continues the United States' long history of agricultural subsidies as well as pursuing areas such as energy, conservation, nutrition, and rural development. Some specific initiatives in the bill include increases in Food Stamp benefits, increased support for the production of cellulosic ethanol, and money for the research of pests, diseases and other agricultural problems. On January 1, 2013, Congress passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 to avert the fiscal cliff and the next day President Barack Obama signed the Act into law. (Public Law No: 112-240) The "fiscal cliff" deal was primarily enacted to avoid automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, but also included provisions extending portions of the 20 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1996 Farm Bill
The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-127), known informally as the Freedom to Farm Act, the FAIR Act, or the 1996 U.S. Farm Bill, was the omnibus 1996 farm bill that, among other provisions, revises and simplifies direct payment programs for crops and eliminates milk price supports through direct government purchases. The law removed the link between income support payments and farm prices. It authorized 7-year production flexibility contract payments that provided participating producers with fixed government payments independent of current farm prices and production. The law specified the total amount of money to be made available through contract payments under production flexibility contracts for each fiscal year from 1996 through 2002. Payment levels were allocated among contract commodities according to specified percentages, generally derived from each commodity’s share of projected deficiency payments for fiscal 1996-2002. The law inc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives, and an Upper house, upper body, the United States Senate, U.S. Senate. They both meet in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. Members of Congress are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a Governor (United States), governor's appointment. Congress has a total of 535 voting members, a figure which includes 100 United States senators, senators and 435 List of current members of the United States House of Representatives, representatives; the House of Representatives has 6 additional Non-voting members of the United States House of Representatives, non-voting members. The vice president of the United States, as President of the Senate, has a vote in the Senate ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Environmental Quality Incentives Program
The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is a United States government program designed to assist farmers in improving environmental quality, particularly water quality and soil conservation. Congress established the program in the 1996 farm bill to provide primarily cost-sharing assistance, but also technical and educational assistance, aimed at promoting production and environmental quality, and optimizing environmental benefits. The program replaced the Agricultural Conservation Program, the Water Quality Incentives Program, the Great Plains Conservation Program, and the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program. EQIP was reauthorized in the 2002 farm bill at $0.4 billion in mandatory spending in FY2002 and rising to $1.3 billion in FY2007. The funding each year is to be divided, with 60% targeted to environmental concerns associated with livestock production and the remainder to crop production. Producers enter into contracts of 1 to 10 years. Participan ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Irrigation AM1 (38859901891)
Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been developed by many cultures around the world. Irrigation helps to grow crops, maintain landscapes, and revegetate disturbed soils in dry areas and during times of below-average rainfall. In addition to these uses, irrigation is also employed to protect crops from frost, suppress weed growth in grain fields, and prevent soil consolidation. It is also used to cool livestock, reduce dust, dispose of sewage, and support mining operations. Drainage, which involves the removal of surface and sub-surface water from a given location, is often studied in conjunction with irrigation. There are several methods of irrigation that differ in how water is supplied to plants. Surface irrigation, also known as gravity irrigation, is the oldest form of i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paul Wesley Johnson
Paul Wesley Johnson (10 June 1941 – 15 February 2021) was an American writer, policymaker, and environmentalist. Early career After high school Johnson got his private and commercial pilot's certificates and airframe and power plant ratings at the University of Illinois Institute of Aviation. In the early 1960s he served in the Peace Corps' Ghana 2 contingent, teaching sheet metal and auto mechanics in Kpando, in the Volta Region. After the PC he studied forestry at Michigan, then in the mid-1960s worked for the US Forestry Service in Washington State. In the later 1960s he taught in Ghana again, this time for the Teachers for West Africa Program, at the School of Forestry in Sunyani. After returning to Michigan, he took a forest ecology course with the Organization for Tropical Studies which took him to Honduras and Costa Rica (at the OTS' La Selva Heredia), then did graduate work on '' Cordia alliodora'' at what is now the Tropical Agriculture Research and Higher Education ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Conservation Movement
The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental, and social movement that seeks to manage and protect natural resources, including animal, fungus, and plant species as well as their habitat for the future. Conservationists are concerned with leaving the environment in a better state than the condition they found it in. Evidence-based conservation seeks to use high quality scientific evidence to make conservation efforts more effective. The early conservation movement evolved out of necessity to maintain natural resources such as fisheries, wildlife management, water, soil, as well as conservation and sustainable forestry. The contemporary conservation movement has broadened from the early movement's emphasis on use of sustainable yield of natural resources and preservation of wilderness areas to include preservation of biodiversity. Some say the conservation movement is part of the broader and more far-reaching environmental mov ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Erosion Control
Erosion control is the practice of preventing or controlling wind or water erosion in agriculture, land development, coast, coastal areas, Bank (geography), river banks and construction. Effective erosion controls handle surface runoff and are important techniques in preventing water pollution, soil erosion, soil loss, wildlife habitat loss and human property loss. Usage Erosion controls are used in natural areas, agricultural settings or urban environments. In urban areas erosion controls are often part of stormwater runoff management programs required by local governments. The controls often involve the creation of a physical barrier, such as vegetation or rock, to absorb some of the energy of the wind or water that is causing the erosion. They also involve building and maintaining storm drains. On construction sites they are often implemented in conjunction with sediment controls such as sediment basins and silt fences. Bank erosion is a natural process: without it, River, r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that supplied manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to supply jobs for young men and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States. There was eventually a smaller counterpart program for unemployed women called the She-She-She Camps, which were championed by Eleanor Roosevelt. Robert Fechner was the first director of this agency, succeeded by James McEntee (labor leader), James McEntee following Fechner's death. The largest enrollment at any one time was 300,000. Through the course of its nine years ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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NARA
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an independent agency of the United States government within the executive branch, charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It is also tasked with increasing public access to those documents that make up the National Archives. NARA is officially responsible for maintaining and publishing the legally authentic and authoritative copies of acts of Congress, presidential directives, and federal regulations. NARA also transmits votes of the Electoral College to Congress. It also examines Electoral College and constitutional amendment ratification documents for prima facie legal sufficiency and an authenticating signature. The National Archives, and its publicly exhibited Charters of Freedom, which include the original United States Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, United States Bill of Rights, Emancipation Proclamation (starting in 2026), and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |