- Industrie: Government
- Number of terms: 41534
- Number of blossaries: 0
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For a specific soil, the maximum average annual soil loss expressed as tons per acre per year that will permit current production levels to be maintained economically and indefinitely. T values range from 2 to 5 tons per acre per year. According to the 1992 national resources inventory, about 63 million acres of highly erodible cropland are still eroding at more than their T value, including 21 million acres that are still eroding at three times T.
Industry:Agriculture
Replaced by a new USDA agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service after USDA reorganization in 1994. Responsibilities include carrying out technical assistance programs in cooperation with soil conservation districts to improve and conserve soil and water resources, and operating related programs such as the national soil survey and the natural resources inventory.
Industry:Agriculture
P.L. 74-46 (February 26, 1936) was designed to support farm income by making soil-conservation and soil-building payments to participating farmers. This design overcame the unconstitutional taxes on processors in the support program authorized by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. The 1936 Act supported farm income and reduced surpluses by paying farmers for shifting from crops in excess supply (soil depleting crops) to soil building crops like legumes and grasses. This law, as amended, continues to serve as the enabling authority for a number of activities and programs carried out by the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Industry:Agriculture
A legal subdivision of state government, with a locally elected governing body, responsible for developing and carrying out a program of soil and water conservation within a geographic boundary, usually coinciding with county lines. The nearly 3,000 districts in the United States have varying names — soil conservation districts, soil and water conservation districts, natural resources districts, resource districts, resource conservation districts.
Industry:Agriculture
An organic material like humus or compost that helps soil absorb water, build a bacterial community, and take up mineral nutrients.
Industry:Agriculture
A federal program of the late 1950s and early 1960s that paid farmers to retire land from production for 10 years; the predecessor to today’s Conservation Reserve Program. Some elements in the CRP, such as a limit on CRP acres per county, were a response to the Soil Bank experience.
Industry:Agriculture
Title I of the Agricultural Act of 1956 (P.L. 84-540), designated the Soil Bank Act, created the Acreage Reserve Program to retire land producing basic commodities under an annual agreement from 1956 through 1959, and the Conservation Reserve Program, to retire agricultural land under contracts of 3, 5, or 10 years. The Soil Bank Act was repealed by Section 601 of the Food and Agriculture Act of 1965 (P.L. 89-321). Nevertheless, this early Conservation Reserve served as the model for the current Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), which was enacted in the Food Security Act of 1985.
Industry:Agriculture
In the United States, about 70,000 kinds of soil are recognized in the nationwide system of classification. Each has a unique set of characteristics and a potential for use. These characteristics are important in designing a conservation plan to protect the soil from erosion if it is being cultivated. The Natural Resources Conservation Service is responsible for mapping the United States by soil type, through the Soil Survey Program.
Industry:Agriculture
A provision authorized by the Food Security Act of 1985 which is designed to discourage the conversion of highly erodible land from extensive conserving uses to intensive agricultural production. If highly erodible grassland or woodland is used for crop production without appropriate conservation measure, producers may lose eligibility for participation in many USDA programs.
Industry:Agriculture
P.L. 63-95 (May 8, 1914) authorized and provided initial funding for states to establish an educational outreach arm to "extend" the results of research programs at the land grant colleges of agriculture and their affiliated state agricultural experiment stations to all citizens who might benefit from them. In 1962 Congress amended the act to establish a formula for distributing federal funds to states for agricultural extension programs. The formula provides for each state to receive what it received in 1962 as a base. Funds appropriated in excess of the 1962 level are allocated as follows: 4% of funds go to the federal component of the Cooperative Extension System (now part of the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service); of the remainder, 20% is allocated to each state equally; and 80% is allocated on the basis of a state’s share of the U.S. rural and farm populations. On average, Smith-Lever formula funds account for about 30% of a state’s total funding for extension programs.
Industry:Agriculture
