Natural Resources Conservation Service NRCS

As dust storms from the Great Plains darkened skies over Washington in the spring of 1935, Congress passed the Soil Conservation Act, signed on April 27, 1935, creating the Soil Conservation Service under Hugh Hammond Bennett. States then authorized local conservation districts, run by local boards, to work with the service, a partnership that still covers nearly every county. The agency was renamed the Natural Resources Conservation Service in 1994.

Most American land is privately owned, and NRCS works entirely through voluntary programs rather than regulation. Its conservationists give farmers free technical help designing practices such as cover crops, terraces, buffer strips, and grazing plans. Its main financial programs, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and the Conservation Stewardship Program, share the cost of adopting those practices, and its easement programs protect wetlands and farmland. It also produces the national soil survey.

Demand for NRCS programs has long exceeded funding, with many applicants turned away. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 added nearly $20 billion for conservation, much of it tied to climate goals, and the 2025 budget reconciliation law redirected unspent portions of that money into the regular farm bill programs without the climate focus. Supporters of the change said it gave farmers more flexibility, while environmental groups said it dropped climate-smart priorities.