South Dakota USDA Newsletter - November 20, 2024
Greetings from the South Dakota State FSA Office,
I am taking over State Executive Director (SED) Steve Dick’s column for the month of November to introduce myself. My name is Ryan Vanden Berge, and I was recently hired as the Deputy State Executive Director for Farm Service Agency (FSA) in South Dakota. I will be assisting the SED with the administration of all FSA programs across the state. I am excited to start this new role with FSA!
I grew up on a farm in western Douglas County and remain active on our family farm today. My first experience with FSA was as a Youth Loan borrower. I borrowed $5,000 to purchase commercial ewes. Fortunately, we have seen improvements to the FSA Youth Loan Program with the loan limit recently being raised from $5,000 to $10,000.
My FSA career began over 16 years ago as a summer intern at the Aurora County FSA Office. I transitioned into full-time farm loan positions in Madison, Parkston and Chamberlain. For the last four years, I have been serving as the Farm Loan Program Manager at the SD FSA State Office in Huron.
In the coming months, I will be travelling the state to visit with FSA employees and to connect with our producers. We have exceptional staff located in 55 service centers across South Dakota and I look forward to working with them to effectively implement FSA programs.
Please reach out to me with any questions or concerns at 605-352-1160.
Sincerely,
Ryan Vanden Berge
Deputy State Executive Director
USDA - Farm Service Agency
Greetings,
The Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP) is an example of public-private partnership at its best. RCPP proposals support conservation activities which are evaluated at the national level. I take pride in announcing that South Dakota (SD) is first in the nation for most applications accepted with six SD projects to receive approximately $83 million in funding. Furthermore, of the seven tribal entity projects accepted nationwide, three will be based in South Dakota. These successes are a great win for South Dakota conservation, our conservation partners, and local economies. See the article below titled “Six South Dakota Projects Receiving $82.7 Million….” to learn more. Entities interested in preparing a proposal should contact Matt Morlock, at matthew.morlock@usda.gov, our State RCCP coordinator.
Supported by the Inflation Reduction Act, NRCS in South Dakota obligated more funds than ever this year for new Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) contracts totaling $86 million. Our staff are extremely busy this time of year assisting NRCS customers to close out 2024 activities and planning for 2025 activities. I am asking readers who have existing EQIP and CSP contracts or applications to please work closely with your local NRCS field office to navigate this workload.
Thank you to all South Dakota farmers, ranchers, land managers, landowners and conservation partners who are moving the needle of conservation in our state.
Sincerely,
Tony Sunseri
State Conservationist
USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service
November 28, 2024 - Holiday - USDA Service Centers CLOSED
December 2, 2024 - Deadline to return County Committee ballots to local FSA Offices, or be postmarked
December 13, 2024 - Deadline for Organic Dairy Marketing Assistance Program (ODMAP)
December 18, 2024 - FSA State Committee Meeting (information below)
December 20, 2024 - Batching date for Inflation Reduction Act funded FY2025 Agricultural Conservation Easement Program's Agricultural Land Easements (ACEP-ALE) and Wetland Reserve Easements (ACEP-WRE)
December 25, 2024 - Holiday - USDA Service Centers CLOSED
The 2024 Farm Service Agency County Committee Elections began on Nov. 4, 2024, when ballots were mailed to eligible voters. The deadline to return ballots to local FSA offices, or to be postmarked, is Dec. 2, 2024.
County committee members are an important component of the operations of FSA and provide a link between the agricultural community and USDA. Farmers and ranchers elected to county committees help deliver FSA programs at the local level, applying their knowledge and judgment to make decisions on commodity price support programs; conservation programs; incentive indemnity and disaster programs for some commodities; emergency programs and eligibility. FSA committees operate within official regulations designed to carry out federal laws.
To be an eligible voter, farmers and ranchers must:
- Be of legal voting age or, if not of legal voting age, supervise and conduct the farming operation of an entire farm.
- Have an interest in a farm or ranch as either:
- An individual who meets one or more of the following:
- Is eligible and capable to vote in one’s own right.
- Is a partner of a general partnership.
- Is a member of a joint venture.
- Is an authorized representative of a legal entity.
- Participate or cooperate in any FSA program that is provided by law. A cooperating producer is someone who has provided information about their farming or ranching operation(s) but may not have applied or received FSA program benefits.
Eligible voters in the applicable Local Administrative Areas (LAA) who do not receive a ballot can obtain one from their local FSA county office. Customers can identify which LAA they or their farming operation is in by using our GIS locator tool available at fsa.usda.gov/elections.
Newly elected committee members will take office Jan. 1, 2025.
More information on county committees can be found at County Committee Elections or at a local USDA Service Center.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is issuing almost $92 million in payments to livestock producers, nationwide, who faced increased supplemental feed costs as a result of forage losses due to 2022 qualifying drought and wildfire. The payments for livestock producers are through the Emergency Livestock Relief Program (ELRP) 2022 and are a second round of payments to producers using remaining funds in the program.
ELRP support came from the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2023 (P.L. 117-328), signed by President Biden that provides financial assistance for agricultural producers impacted by wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, winter storms and other eligible disasters occurring in calendar year 2022.
The almost $92 million in ELRP payments for 2022 losses build on more than $465 million in payments made to eligible livestock producers in September 2023 who suffered qualifying losses due to drought or wildfire in 2022. Learn more on the Emergency Relief webpage.
ELAP provides emergency assistance to eligible livestock, honeybee, and farm-raised fish producers who have losses due to disease, adverse weather or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, not covered by other agricultural disaster assistance programs.
Eligible losses include:
-
Livestock - grazing losses not covered under the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP), loss of purchased feed and/or mechanically harvested feed due to an eligible adverse weather event, additional cost of transporting water and feed because of an eligible drought and additional cost associated with gathering livestock to treat for cattle tick fever.
-
Honeybee - loss of purchased feed due to an eligible adverse weather event, cost of additional feed purchased above normal quantities due to an eligible adverse weather condition, colony losses in excess of normal mortality due to an eligible weather event or loss condition, including CCD, and hive losses due to eligible adverse weather.
-
Farm-Raised Fish - death losses in excess of normal mortality and/or loss of purchased feed due to an eligible adverse weather event.
If you’ve suffered eligible livestock, honeybee, or farm-raised fish losses during calendar year 2024, you must file a notice of loss and an application for payment by Jan. 30, 2025.
FSA is cleaning up our producer record database and needs your help. Please report any changes of address, zip code, phone number, email address or an incorrect name or business name on file to our office. You should also report changes in your farm operation, like the addition of a farm by lease or purchase. You should also report any changes to your operation in which you reorganize to form a Trust, LLC or other legal entity.
FSA and NRCS program participants are required to promptly report changes in their farming operation to the County Committee in writing and to update their Farm Operating Plan on form CCC-902.
To update your records, contact your local USDA Service Center.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) reminds foreign investors with an interest in agricultural land in the United States that they are required to report their land holdings and transactions to USDA.
The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) requires foreign investors who buy, sell or hold an interest in U.S. agricultural land to report their holdings and transactions to the USDA. Foreign investors must file AFIDA Report Form FSA-153 with the FSA county office in the county where the land is located. Large or complex filings may be handled by AFIDA headquarters staff in Washington, D.C.
According to CFR Title 7 Part 781, any foreign person who holds an interest in U.S. agricultural land is required to report their holdings no later than 90 days after the date of the transaction.
Foreign investors should report holdings of agricultural land totaling 10 acres or more used for farming, ranching or timber production, and leaseholds on agricultural land of 10 or more years. Tracts totaling 10 acres or less in the aggregate, and which produce annual gross receipts in excess of $1,000 from the sale of farm, ranch, forestry or timber products, must also be reported. AFIDA reports are also required when there are changes in land use, such as from agricultural to nonagricultural use. Foreign investors must also file a report when there is a change in the status of ownership.
The information from AFIDA reports is used to prepare an annual report to Congress. These annual reports to Congress, as well as more information, are available on the FSA AFIDA webpage.
Assistance in completing the FSA-153 report may be obtained from the local FSA office. For more information regarding AFIDA or FSA programs, contact your County FSA office or visit farmers.gov.
There are options for Farm Service Agency (FSA) loan customers during financial stress. If you are a borrower who is unable to make payments on a loan, contact your local FSA Farm Loan Manager to learn about your options.
The Farm Service Agency (FSA) has several loan programs to help you start or continue an agriculture production. Farm ownership and operating loans are available.
While all qualified producers are eligible to apply for these loan programs, FSA has provided priority funding for members of targeted underserved applicants.
A targeted underserved applicant is one of a group whose members have been subjected to racial, ethnic or gender prejudice because of his or her identity as members of the group without regard to his or her individual qualities.
For purposes of this program, targeted underserved groups are women, African Americans, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Hispanics, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
FSA loans are only available to applicants who meet all the eligibility requirements and are unable to obtain the needed credit elsewhere.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today announced a historic $1.5 billion for 92 partner-driven conservation projects through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), a partner-driven approach to conservation that funds solutions to natural resource challenges on agricultural land. Partners will provide $968 million in contributions to amplify the impact of the federal investment. Coming in at first in the nation for most applications accepted, six South Dakota (SD) projects will receive $82.7 million in funding. Selected RCPP projects, including those in SD, will help farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners adopt and expand voluntary, locally led conservation strategies to enhance natural resources while tackling the climate crisis.
Today’s investment is made with funding available through the Farm Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRA is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America Agenda and the largest investment in climate action and conservation in world history, which has enabled USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to boost funding for RCPP. In total, the IRA provides $19.5 billion to support USDA’s oversubscribed conservation programs, including $4.95 billion for RCPP.
“The Regional Conservation Partnership Program is an example of public-private partnership at its best,” said Tony Sunseri, State Conservationist in SD for USDA’s NRCS. “Thanks to the boost in funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, we are able to invest even more in this popular and important program and increase our conservation impact across the country, supporting our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners while at the same time protecting our natural resources for the future.”
The NRCS also set aside $100 million for Tribal-led projects, part of a broader effort to support Tribes and Tribal producers through NRCS conservation programs. From this set aside, NRCS has made seven awards to five different tribes and tribal entities.
By leveraging collective resources and collaborating on common goals, RCPP demonstrates the power of public-private partnerships in delivering results for agriculture and conservation.
In SD, project(s) include:
- Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
- Cultivating Sustainability: Developing a Crop Emissions and Sustainability Index for Enhanced Economic Potential on Sisseton Wahpeton Tribal Lands
- $1,200,000.00
- South Dakota Second Century Habitat Fund Inc.
- Second Century Working Lands & Woody Habitat Program
- $11,293,311.00
- Buffalo Nations Grasslands Alliance
- Native Nations Grassland Restoration in the Northern Great Plains
- $4,957,317.00
- Pheasants Forever, Inc and Quail Forever
- Accelerating Prescribed Fire in South Dakota
- $24,387,150.00
- The Nature Conservancy
- The Nature Conservancy RCPP Project in South Dakota
- $19,664,000.00
- Intertribal Buffalo Council
- Tribal Buffalo Restoration in the Northern Great Plains Region
- $21,250,000.00
The projects support priorities in conservation and climate and can save farmers money and increase productivity. For example, there are six projects that support use of innovative technologies to reduce enteric methane emissions in livestock, 16 projects that address water conservation in the West, ensuring producers and communities have the tools they need to adapt in the face of continued drought pressures, and 42 projects promote terrestrial wildlife habitat conservation and restoration, as directed by the recent USDA Secretarial memo: Conserving and Restoring Terrestrial Wildlife Habitat Connectivity and Corridors.
See the list of all the 92 awarded projects here.
Projects are being awarded under both RCPP Classic and RCPP Alternative Funding Arrangements (AFA). The RCPP Classic projects are implemented using NRCS contracts and easements with producers, landowners, and communities in collaboration with project partners. Through RCPP AFA, the lead partner works directly with agricultural producers to support the development of innovative conservation approaches that would not otherwise be available under RCPP Classic. To learn more, visit usda.gov.
Here at USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), we are supporting conservation efforts on working lands. We provide one-on-one assistance to producers and communities, and we are taking steps to ensure our conservation solutions integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and Indigenous Stewardship Methods (ISM).
Native Americans are this land’s original conservationists, and we want to make sure that NRCS is listening to tribes to help shape conservation programs and practices.
We’re proud of the technical assistance that we provide to 345 federally recognized tribes, or 60 percent of all tribal nations, on 75 million acres, through our field offices nationwide. Between 2005 and 2021, NRCS also provided financial assistance to 163 Native American tribes.
In recent years, NRCS has taken bold steps toward equity, justice and opportunity for all producers, including tribal producers. These efforts are driven by wise council from tribes and intertribal organizations.
In 2022, NRCS formed the Tribal and Indigenous Practices Team to help regions develop new Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) scenarios, Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) enhancements, improve accessibility of existing conservation practice standards, develop new interim conservation practice standards, provide targeted training, adjust programmatic and technical policies, and improve availability of natural resources data and information important to Tribes and indigenous peoples in order to make NRCS assistance more meaningful on tribal lands and in native communities, while respecting that TEK and ISM are the intellectual property of tribes and indigenous peoples.
With the help of our staff in California, we developed a Conservation Evaluation and Monitoring Activity (CEMA), Indigenous Stewardship Methods Evaluation (CEMA 222), to provide funding to assist in sharing knowledge among tribal subject matter experts. Through this new conservation activity, which originated with council from tribes, landowners and agricultural producers can now get financial assistance to hire qualified individuals, identified by tribes, to incorporate Tribal Ecological Knowledge into their conservation plans.
NRCS began providing targeted soil health training to tribes, tribal members, and native communities, while also using the opportunity to learn native technologies used to improve soil health from the tribal and indigenous communities participating in the training events. Since 2022, NRCS has reached more than 25 Tribal Nations, dozens of Alaska Native villages, and several communities in the Pacific Islands and Caribbean Islands Areas with these targeted exchanges of knowledge. More requests for these events are continually coming in, and there are many planned for fiscal year 2025.
In a similar vein, NRCS has been partnering with tribes and key organizations to improve NRCS assistance for bison management. Training for NRCS and partner staff to build competency in bison management has begun, new EQIP payment scenarios have been released, the grazing management conservation practice standard has been updated to reflect considerations for bison management, and there are several more products and activities planned for fiscal year 2025 related to bison management.
All of these efforts are making our conservation programs and practices better align with tribal producers, and help USDA meet our federal trust responsibilities to tribes by improving program access. We’re excited to soon unveil a new Tribal Relations Strategy as well as information on our growing team to serve tribes and tribal producers across the country.
We encourage tribes and tribal producers who aren’t working with us or who want to take their conservation activities to the next level to give us a call. We’ll be excited to share the improvements that we’ve made to better serve tribes. Please contact the NRCS at your local USDA Service Center.
-
South Dakota FSA State Committee Meeting: December 18, 2024, 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. CT at Federal Building, 200 4th Street SW, Huron, SD 57350.
- Questions? Contact Jean Wharton at jean.wharton@usda.gov.
- If you would need to request an accommodation, please contact Jean Wharton at (605) 352-1160 or jean.wharton@usda.gov by December 4, 2024, to request accommodations (e.g., an interpreter, translator, seating arrangements, etc.) or materials in an alternative format (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape – captioning, etc.).
Top of page
USDA in South Dakota
200 4th Street SW
Huron, SD 57350
FSA Phone: (605) 352-1160
NRCS Phone: (605) 352-1200
RMA Phone: (406) 651-8450
|
|
Get Started at Your USDA Service Center | Farmers.gov
|
|
Farm Service Agency
State Executive Director:
Steve Dick
Deputy State Executive Director:
Ryan Vanden Berge
Administrative Officer:
Theresa Hoadley
Program Managers:
Owen Fagerhaug - Conservation
Logan Kopfmann - Disaster Relief
Donita Garry - Program Delivery
Bridget Weber - Farm Loan Program, Acting
State Outreach Coordinator:
Gail Gullickson
State Committee:
Troy Knecht, Chair
Fanny Brewer
Peggy Greenway
Larry Olsen
Hank Wonnenberg
|
Natural Resources Conservation Service
State Conservationist:
Tony Sunseri
Assistant State Conservationists:
Jessica Michalski - Ecological Sciences James Reedy - Engineering
Nathan Jones - Soils
Val Dupraz - Programs
Colette Kessler - Partnerships
Deke Hobbick - Compliance
Denise Gauer - Management & Strategy Shala Larson - Public Affairs Manager
|
|
South Dakota State FSA Office (usda.gov)
South Dakota State Office | Natural Resources Conservation Service (usda.gov)
|
|
