Challenges like drought, wildfire, extreme weather and water quality need attention across the country, representatives of federal conservation partners told attendees at the Tuesday General Session.
The program began with a soil health demostration from David Lamm, Team Leader and Natural Resources Specialist for NRCS. Quick response to help producers affected by drought in 2012 was among accomplishments cited by NRCS Acting Chief Jason Weller. NACD and conservation districts are key partners in efforts to provide landscape-scale conservation and restoration on the nation’s forest lands, said Calvin Joyner, associate deputy chief of the National Forest System. Tom Martin, chief operating officer of the American Forest Foundation, also pledged continued partnership with conservation districts, as did Ellen Glinsky, senior policy advisory at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Glinsky also attended breakout sessions at the annual meeting, where she said EPA values and supports state and state-federal certainty programs that address water quality concerns.
The NACD Live Auction, held Monday night, raised more than $77,000 – a new record for the Association. Big-ticket items included: four 30-gallon containers of Roundup PowerMax donated by Monsanto, four 30-gallon containers of Liberty Link donated by Bayer Crop Science, 100 hours of use on a new 8360R tractor donated by John Deere, and 100 hours of use on a Case i-H Magnum series tractor.
To learn more about the Tuesday sessions, click here for the Tuesday Annual Meeting Newsletter.
The 2013 NACD Annual Meeting is sponsored by the following partners: Case IH; Monsanto; John Deere; AgriDrain Corporation; DuPont; Bayer CropScience; U.S. Forest Service; Plum Creek; DuPont Pioneer; Syngenta; Apache Corporation; American Tree Farm System; Bob Warner of Brighton, Colo.; Scotts Miracle-Gro; National Farmers Union; and Reinke. NACD also thanks NRCS for its partnership and support of the meeting.