- Author: Annie Edwards, Urban Conservationist
- Author: Catherine de la Peña, Soil Conservationis
Are you an urban grower looking to improve the sustainability of your farm? If so, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) may be able to help you achieve your conservation goals. NRCS is a federal agency focused on implementing on-farm conservation across agricultural operations. NRCS provides America's farmers and ranchers with financial and technical assistance to voluntarily put conservation on the ground, helping both the environment and agricultural land. While NRCS is a federal agency, our office in California tailors our financial assistance to meet the unique natural resource concerns we see across the state.
As NRCS evolves to address the changing needs of our farmers and ranchers, the agency has taken strides to better serve urban producers. As of today, 17 Urban Service Centers have opened in major metropolitan centers across the US, with an additional 10 offices being planned. In California, we have two new Urban Service Centers.
- Oakland Urban Service Center Contacts:
- Compton Urban Service Center Contacts:
NRCS has a variety of programs to assist producers, including our flagship programs, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP). These programs provide financial assistance to producers for implementing and maintaining conservation practices including high tunnels, hedgerows, structures for wildlife, and irrigation systems. To learn if your operation would be a good fit, refer to Is EQIP Right for Me? and Is CSP Right for Me?.
NRCS is also connected to the USDA Office of Urban Agriculture and Innovation Production (UAIP), which offers the UAIP Grant and Composting and Food Waste Reduction (CFWR) Cooperative Agreements.
In-ground beds with drip irrigation at Florence Fang Community Farm, San Francisco.
NRCS can provide financial assistance for microirrigation.
How to apply. We recommend that once you have a basic idea of what your conservation goals are, you reach out to your closest Urban Service Center and set up an appointment. At this meeting, you can connect face-to-face with your county's NRCS and USDA Farm Services Agency (FSA) staff. Before you come in, review USDA's getting started guide and take a moment to look over NRCS definitions of historically underserved farmers and ranchers (HUFR). Many NRCS programs— including EQIP and CSP offer higher rates for self-identified HUFR. A specific guide for HUFR can be found here.
If you are interested in applying to any of our programs, you'll need to work with FSA to establish a farm and tract number. Along with registering for NRCS programs, there are added benefits of receiving a farm number, including alerts about new programs, inclusion in the agricultural census, and becoming eligible to elect FSA county committee members. To create a farm and tract number, you will need the following:
- A completed New Customer Data Worksheet, submitted to your local NRCS office. Find the form, as well as instructions on how to apply, here.
- A deed/lease certifying that you have control of the land.
To apply for NRCS programs, you will need to submit a CPA-1200 application to your local NRCS office, which accepts applications year-round. After we receive your application, we will work with FSA to ensure that you are eligible for our programs.
NRCS is committed to helping people help the land— that means all people, including urban and small-scale growers. We look forward to working with you and providing the best service possible to you on your journey.
- Author: Ben Faber
Here is a really good introduction to the use of the on-line Soil Survey from USDA. Maybe it is easier to follow than blogs I have posted in the past.
WASHINGTON — “Soil don't get no respect,” Rodney Dangerfield might have said (but didn't). Perhaps you know your state bird or flower, but do you know your state soil?
Well, in recent years soil has begun to get more respect. Since the celebration of the Soil Survey Centennial back in 1999, each state has been given its own official state soil. It was in 1899 that the U. S. Department of Agriculture started its survey of all the soils in the country.
SOILS COME IN MANY ‘Flavours'
You might wonder what a “soil survey” really is. Isn't it all just dirt — some perhaps stickier, or redder or deeper — that lies beneath forest, meadow, farm, home and garden?
There you go again. Not enough respect.
In fact, soils are distinctive, as different from each other as robins are from blue jays. These differences are hard to appreciate, of course, because soil is mostly underground, hidden from view. But if you were to dig some holes a few feet deep and then look carefully at their inside surfaces, you would find that soils are made up of layers of varying thickness, called horizons. One soil might differ from the next not only in the thickness of its horizons, but also in their appearance and feel.
Horizons might be as white as chalk, as red as rust, or as dark brown as chocolate. A horizon might be cement-hard, gritty with sand, or stuff for sculpture. And if you were to tease the dirt along one edge of the hole so it falls away naturally — wow! — each horizon would reveal its particles clumped together in arrangements like plates, blocks or prisms. Such information, and more, has allowed soils to be classified, much as birds, flowers and other living things are.
CLASSIFYING SOILS
Modern soil classification goes back only a few decades, when all the world's soils were grouped taxonomically into a dozen “orders.” Differences among orders reflect the formative influence of a particular combination of climate, plants and animals, topography, time and original rock material.
Just as all vertebrate animals are huddled together by biologists into smaller groupings (mammals, say) and those groupings into still smaller ones, so each soil order is divided and subdivided to include more distinctly different soils. At the end of the dividing and subdividing, you end up with a “soil series” identified with a proper name — like the Haven series in my vegetable garden, for example.
YOUR STATE'S AND BACKYARD'S SOIL
A particular soil becomes an official state soil by being widespread within the state; being distinctive chemically or physically; having some degree of name recognition; and, of course, getting a legislative stamp of approval. Examples include soils like West Virginia's Monongahela soil, Texas' Houston Black soil, California's San Joaquin soil and New York's Honeoye soil.
The job, now, of these “ambassadors” of the benevolent underworld is to rekindle awareness of soil's value as a natural resource that can only be renewed very slowly. Soil provides food, shelter, clothing and more, yet it is being lost at alarming rates to everything from blacktop to erosion.
Out in the garden this spring, dig a hole deep and wide enough that you can see and appreciate at least some of the various and distinctive horizons.
Then, if you want the name and a detailed description of that soil — or any soil — look at the maps and descriptions in the Soil Survey Reports issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). Search online for “soil survey nrcs” and you'll find links to soil maps for counties throughout the U.S. Or go to the link to “web soil survey.” At this site, you can type in a street address around which you “draw” your area of interest (AOI). The site will delineate the names and descriptions of soils within that AOI.
And of course this is available as an app at:
https://casoilresource.lawr.ucdavis.edu/soilweb-apps/
Online:
www.leereich.com/blog
leereich.com
http://www.leereich.com/2016/06/edens-gardens.html