The Agricultural Drainage Management Coalition (ADMC) met with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Chief Aubrey Bettencourt on Friday, September 26th to discuss strategies for maximizing the effectiveness of the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the two organizations. ADMC, which works to advance sustainable drainage solutions in agriculture, emphasized the importance of forming an NRCS/ADMC working group to address conservation drainage needs, identify opportunities, and develop implementation solutions that remove adoption barriers and prioritize the interests of producers. Chief Bettencourt agreed to appoint staff to serve as the NRCS lead for this working group.
During the meeting, Chief Bettencourt outlined her overarching priority for NRCS: putting farmers first by streamlining the delivery of technical and financial assistance. She stressed the need for conservation systems that make farmers more efficient and deliver strong environmental benefits. The Chief also highlighted the agency’s commitment to updating conservation practice standards to keep pace with technological advancements. Additionally, the discussion addressed the need to improve the Technical Service Provider (TSP) program, recognizing that the increasing demand for technical assistance among farmers could exceed NRCS’s current capacity.
ADMC is well-positioned to help NRCS achieve these priorities, as reflected in the signed MOU. For example, the turn-key approach in Minnesota and the Iowa batch and builds has enabled multiple conservation drainage projects to be packaged and completed efficiently, streamlining both financial and technical assistance delivery. These alternative practice delivery models exemplify how ADMC’s innovative strategies can directly benefit farmers by accelerating access to support and conservation resources. The MOU also underscores ADMC’s role in providing critical feedback to NRCS, improving the accuracy of practice scenarios and payment schedules to ensure they reflect current market conditions. Furthermore, ADMC is committed to advancing the use of TSPs, believing that strong public/private partnerships are essential for scaling up conservation practice delivery. By closely aligning its initiatives with NRCS’s farmer-first philosophy and goals for improved assistance, ADMC’s efforts are poised to deliver measurable benefits for producers and drive meaningful progress in agricultural conservation.