Area resident Chase Hicks was among those who graduated recently from USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Conservation Planning Course held during December and January in Cookeville, TN.Initiated by the vision of State Conservationist Kevin Brown, Hull-York Lakeland RC&D has organized the two week course in cooperation with TennesseeTechnologicalUniversity’s (TTU) School of Agriculture.Utilizing each of the 3 TTU farms available gives the participants a chance to view unique perspectives all in one place.
Thirty-two students were enrolled in the first class from across Tennessee and Kentucky.They are employed by Soil Conservation Districts, County governments, AmeriCorps, and NRCS.Training took place in the field and classroom on Conservation Planning, Wildlife, Threatened & Endangered Species, Cultural Resources, Grazing, Water Quality, Soils, Organic Certification, and the planning tools necessary to do their jobs well.
Each group was assigned a real life conservation planning scenario in which to develop a Resource Management System (RMS) level plan with a ‘mock’ producer.A RMS level plan is the highest conservation level plan that can be written on a farm – one that addresses all the natural resource concerns and issues on a certain tract or parcel of land.That plan was later presented to USDA-NRCS Resource Specialists in order to ‘pass’ the Course.
Mr. Brown’s comments in his welcome letter to the class reflected upon the mission statement of the NRCS agency “...take what you learn here and use it to be even more effective as you help people help the land.”
This content requires the latest Adobe Flash Player and a browser with JavaScript enabled.
Click here for a free download of the latest Adobe Flash Player.
