NRCS

There has been little in Ruben Herrera’s life of late to celebrate. The past few years have been marred by drugs, prison, and homelessness. A military vet who was raised on a farm in Gilbert, Arizona, Ruben remembered the sweetness of his childhood rural lifestyle even as he struggled with the...

In southern Illinois, along the Mississippi River, you can see a diverse landscape of woodlands, open wild areas and farmland. But that wasn’t the case about 20 years ago, after the Great Flood of 1993 ravaged the area. That summer, all of these ecosystems resembled a moonscape with most of the...

For 40 years, Vietnam veteran Javier Mancha has developed his Maverick County, Tex. land by hand, and relied on USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to help incorporate conservation practices into his operation. Mancha’s Rosita Valley farm is known locally for growing some of the...

For Harlan County, Ky. landowners Jim and Joanne Corum, conservation is a way of life. For the Corums, making the choice to enroll their land in the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP)—one of the largest private-land conservation programs of USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)...

Makeover shows are now a staple of reality TV—we all like to see dramatic transformations. Did you know that USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) helps make “conservation makeovers” happen on the land every day? Take Peyton and Myra Yancey’s fourth-generation 225-acre farm in...

The Rapid City, South Dakota, service center includes staff from Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), Rural Development (RD) and Pennington County Conservation District. Three years ago, the Rural Development staff contacted the Cornerstone Rescue Mission and...

Middle and high school students from across the state gathered on the University of Kentucky (UK) campus earlier this month, to learn about potential careers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). UK’s College of Agriculture hosted the group, Jr. Minorities in Agriculture Natural Resources...

Steve Koonce, a Civil Engineering Technician with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), remembers swimming in Tennessee’s Cane Creek as a youngster, when he and friends would jump from a bridge into the water 15 feet below. But today, because of a catastrophic erosion problem, that...

It was 1993 when Pat Maples and her husband made a ranch outside of San Saba, Tex. their home. With advice from a neighbor, the Maples’ purchased Angus cattle and leased out land for hunting. But that was not enough to keep the ranch viable.

USDA and other federal agencies continue to work to address the long term effects of last summer’s historic drought. In the wake of a series of regional drought conferences with farmers, ranchers, business owners and other stakeholders, USDA is entering into a memorandum of understanding with the...